PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 WIP | BONUS: Intoxicated
You wait almost an hour before deciding to make a run for it. You don't delude yourself in thinking that she isn't still here watching - or maybe that's the delusion and she truly left earlier. In any case, you can't afford to wait much longer. The sun hasn't started to set yet, but it will take more than a few hours to make it back down the mountain, and regardless as to when she left, the cat was right.
You do not want to be out here after dark.
You fall as much as you climb down from the outcropping in your haste, scraping your elbow and only just managing to catch yourself before your head hits the rocks. You aren't bleeding much, yet, so you scramble to your feet and start quickly for the trail back down the mountain.
Moving as fast as you can, you're glad your pack is lighter now, missing the water and the food you ate or abandoned at the top of the mountain. A part of you feels bad for littering, but the fear of the setting sun and her gaze raking over your body eclipses it easily. Perhaps you will make good time this way. It's just another sacrifice for safety you tell yourself.
The first part of the climb down is the hardest, as there is a small cliff face you must descend. After that, it's a series of increasingly flat switchbacks for several miles as you make your way towards the valley. From there, a series of streams and trail connections must be navigated to find your way back to where you parked your car. The signing is not great down there - as the trails have been in disrepair - but you're pretty sure that you can find your way back in the dark. You hope so at least.
You're thankful it is still fairly light as you carefully lower yourself down the cliff face. Somewhere to your left, some rocks fall, clacking as they skip down the steep face of the mountain. You jerk in shock and wrench yourself to look. She can't have found you so fast, surely?
Your eyes can pick out nothing, but as you stall to wrench your foot from the crevasse it is lodged in, you swear a chuckle tickles your ear on the breeze. It causes your heart to stutter and adrenaline to flood your system.
“Fuck!” Your sharp cry is as much shock as pain as you yank yourself free. The action sends you plummeting the last 10 feet of the drop, landing painfully on your back and ripping the air from your lungs. Something nearby coos, and again the wind laughs distantly at you.
For a moment, you lay there and gasp for air as you consider if you were over reacting. The sky above you is cloudless and clear and you can hardly tell how your vision swims as you stare into it. Perhaps she was just friendly and you are putting yourself in danger for silly reasons. You've already fallen twice for goodness sake.
Somewhere close, a twig snaps and there is no wind to blame for the husky voice that wraps around your mind and freezes your blood.
“Run, morsel.”
Still a bit dazed, you drag your uncooperative body up and start slowly backing away. Though you look all around, you can not see where she is. If she is. Perhaps you imagined it. Perhaps you hit your head and hallucinated it.
Your skin prickles as it did as she looked at you and regardless of if she is there or not, you turn and hurry down the first of the switchbacks. Briefly, you consider if it may be worth just climbing straight down, forgoing the steady but slow decline of the path as it weaves back and forth. You almost make the decision, the next leg of the path so tantalizingly clear through the trees. However, as your foot crushes the leaves at the edge of the trail with a crunch you freeze. Before you, the ground next to the path drops away into a rocky gorge. You realize that, at least for now, taking short cuts could prove fatal, especially as your ankle starts to protest. Along with your elbow and back.
It is on the third leg that you look back up the mountain. It's been a good fifteen minutes since you fell and while your body hurts from the impact, the walk is invigorating. The hike has done you a lot of good and you enjoy the process of moving and watching your feet enough that you start to forget why you were in such a rush, even as a primal instinct presses you to not slow your pace. Back up the mountain, through the gradually thickening trees, you can still see the cliff you tumbled down. For just an instant, something moves between the trees. It's hard to make out in the darkening forest, but the feeling of a gaze like fingertips returns and your heart quickens.
The prey animal in your blood screeches that there is a predator about, and you turn back to the trail, determined to move faster.
A cold wind blows up from the valley below you, carrying the scent of decay and earth and you shiver.
“Don't worry, I'll keep you warm."
You yelp. The sound, so close, startles you, and almost causes you to fall again. This time you do not look about and just start running down the trail. Your injured limbs scream at you to slow down, and you stumble as much as you leap over certain obstacles. You strain your ears to try and track the predator behind you, but the sounds of the forest are drowned out by your own panting and thundering heart.
She must be behind you, closing in. She is on your tail. Reaching out to grab you. Sharp claws extended to shred the clothes from your body and determine how much meat she has caught for the winter.
Ahead of you, there is a rocky mass just beside the trail, casting shadows across maybe one hundred feet of your path. In the deepening gloom, you can barely make out the large form that stands in the center of the trail there. Waiting. Watching. Blinded by fear, you veer off the trail, still heading down, into the unmarked trees. You're certain that there will be another leg of the switch back if you run this way. Perhaps you can outrun her and make it back to the trail.
Behind you, a laugh, “Aww, are we afraid of the dark, cutie?” a small part of your brain supplies that you climbed over that rock earlier, but you can barely hear it over your gasping breaths as you charge downwards into the dark.
Now in the trees, your journey is much less easy. Hands - branches - reach out and grab at your clothes. Every step is as much downward fall as it is controlled stumble. The wind is full of mocking laughter as it whips past you, and every so often you see a flash of yellow through the trees. You don't care anymore if you're going in the right direction, so driven by the need to run. The desperate blinding need to escape. The higher thought that tries to guide you towards safety, to the trail, in a direction at all, is snuffed out by the all consuming fear of the monster that pursues you in the dark.
You splash through a stream and slip on the steep bank of the other side as the light filtering through the canopy turns a murky red. Something tight and sharp wraps about your ankle as you scrabble for purchase to get to your feet and you can barely manage a whimper as you scramble away, leaving one of your shoes wrapped in briars and soaking in the cold stream.
You start to prey, “Heavenly father,” the words a breathless whisper, “Hallowed be thy name,” the wind whips them away before they even reach your own ears.
Your going is slowed now, and though the fear dulls the pain, each misstep on a rock or branch sends you stumbling forward. Your shirt catches and rips as you slam into a tree and scurry past it. The cold stings as the warmth of the sun disappears entirely, plunging you into true darkness.
The screaming voice of reason tells you to stop and find a light before you trip and die on a rock. You slow and start to pull off your back pack, feeling for the flashlight you're sure you brought when a voice directly to your left calls out.
“Unwrapping yourself for me? You're such a good prey thing,” She chuckles and as your eyes adjust to the dark you swear she is RIGHT THERE. Meer feet away. So close she could grab you. Your voice fails you, the words you would have screamed only a groan of denial. You make a frantic dash to the right, aiming for what looks like a break in the trees, grasping your pack to your chest and sobbing with every step.
You're limping in earnest now. Your body is too cold to keep supplying the heat and adrenaline needed for this chase. Limping out into a moonlit clearing, you realise with horror there is not a trail marker or a road in sight. You are fully, well and truly, lost. A distant memory of astronomy - something your grandmother said about the north star - comes to you and you look plaintively to the stars. Desperate to try and determine which way to go. Where to run next.
It may not have helped in the dark, but as you fail to look down, your good foot catches and yanks against something. You barely have time to register the feeling before you are yanked off your feet and hauled into the air. Your backpack falls to the ground with a flop and you can only stare as the reality of what has happened seeps into your brain through the cracks left in your exhausted mind.
It hits you then how tired and sore you are. Your body is covered in scrapes and cuts from the trees and rocks you ran past. Your ankle is certainly twisted and likely won't hold weight for a week once the remainder of the adrenaline wears off. Your back aches from the fall and you watch as the scrapes on your arms ooze blood from where they dangle below you.
A red line traces down your arm, connecting the small cuts like dots on a page, and drips from your dangling finger into the dirt. A dark spot on the dark ground.
A large paw, massive this close to your face, comes into view. Too tired to fully comprehend what that means, your eyes just keep tracing the outline of the massive toes and the claws that tip them. You wonder, almost numbly, if the claws on her hands are that large, and how they will feel against your skin before she tears you apart.
“Look what got caught in my snare,” She croons, “A tasty treat, all for me,” You manage a gasp as what remains of your shirt is torn away, “Should have gotten help down the mountain, hmm?” She teases as your loose leg is pulled from it's awkward flop to be pressed against the other, “I could have made sure all the marks you got were actually from me,” Her prodding at your injured ankle makes you hiss and flinch, “But that's ok, lame prey is still good, after all,”
You chance a glance up at her, and your heart stutters painfully as she looks down to meet your gaze. Even in the dark, her teeth seem to shine and her yellow-green eyes seem to glow. A desperate and wild call to save yourself rocks through your body. You try to swing back as she kneels down beside you after securing your leg with the remainder of your shirt. She has never been this close before and you register that she smells of the woods and of mint before the terror of her closeness tries to send your mind away again. One massive paw grips the back of your neck and the tips of her claws scrape just shy of your throat as she brings the other up to your face.
Something compels you to struggle and you finally engage your arms and push ineffectually at her hand as she brings a damp rag to cover your nose and mouth.
“No,” You moan against her hand, “Please.” It’s a pitiful attempt, you know this, but you have to try anything.
“Can't have you getting more injured on the way home, Morsel,” She coos as you grab at her paws, “As fun as it would be to just drag you behind me moaning and whimpering - you make such promising noises - that little chase got me all worked up,” You grab at her grinning face and she nips playfully at your fingers before you pull back in alarm. You're quickly losing strength, and after far shorter than you hope you suck in a massive breath through the rag.
As the world first blurs then goes dark, you can only focus on the twin glows of her eyes against the blackness of the forest.