Chapter 28
1459 Words
Chapter 28
In the morning, I was feral.
There is a reason people chop down trees and go live in frickin houses.
It’s cause forests are scary.
Even though I was in a narrow ribbon of leftover forest, a tiny part of what had been there decades ago, and without animals and such inside it, I was terrified. The strip of land was so thin that you could see houses across it through the trees, so there was a modicum of safety, in that you were near civilisation. They were all pine trees, not that I knew how to recognise any other ones but I’d been living there all my life, yeah, I could make out one type of tree. The pine cones pretty much gave it away. They were tall and their branches were spaced out. Pine cones and pine needles made a thick layer on the ground. A row of lamp posts were at one side, lighting a path around a school.
At night, it was still scary as s**t.
Allow me to recap.
The first attack came at once, but I was already buzzed out about it so I think I handled it pretty well. I ran and screamed like a girl, which I am, so no shame there. The Erinyes chased me between the trees into the twilight, her arms always stretched towards me. My flashlight did the trick but it was harder than I had imagined to run into the night with so little a light source. I didn’t really know the lay of the land. It was a place were we had played years ago as children, but I overestimated my knowledge. As I said, I’m the worst kind of navigator you could possibly find, but come on, this was practically a city park, a tiny part of the wild, smack dab in the middle of the place I lived. How hard could it be to find my way around in the dark?
Pretty hard, as it seems.
I ran from her, the minute was up. My adrenaline went down, I breathed in again normally. I was lost. I spent almost a full hour trying to find my backpack again, and that left me with not much time to rest.
I tried to doze off but it was impossible. So I just waited.
Forests are scary. Did I say that? Well I’m saying it again.
Even though I had a perfect timepiece that was ticking away the precise minutes till the predator attacks, I couldn’t make myself calm. Every distant noise, every sway of the branches, made me stand up and get ready to bolt. It was ridiculous, I knew, my logical self knew, that there was no attack yet, but my hypothalamicus or whatchacallit was screaming at me, making me wanna run away.
In retrospect, choosing the forest was a bad idea. I know. We haven’t gone to the second attack yet.
The second attack found me running even as the watch beeped.
Sure, reason said that a running start wouldn’t hurt, but this wasn’t coming from any logical part of my brain. She found me running and chased after me, flowing in the air as if through something thick, just as she did every time.
Thick, thick kariola. Never giving up, always chasing me. Always following me. Thick, thickety-thick.
My running brought me towards the houses, a plain road separating them from the forest. I ran a wide arc and got back towards the forest. My feet slapped on the pavement and made a lot of noise, but nobody seemed to get rattled. Even if they had, I didn’t even look back. I jumped over a bench and dove between the trees. There was nothing to throw at her, and I would have tried to, even though she didn’t seem to mind any obstacles in her path.
I was so scared.
Sixty seconds is an eternity when something is chasing you in the dark forest.
I panted, my foot giving out and I fell to the side as I cursed. Pine needles pricked my hands, not that sharp so as to make me bleed, but enough to feel it and decide not to do it again. The Erinyes came at me around a tree, smiled, so I threw a handful of brown pine needles at her and dashed away.
I had made it.
The third attack found me facing her head on. I stood myself high, my feet wide in a stance of projected power. She came at me, leaning down as she closed the distance, her hand sweeping the dirt floor with purple sparks.
My armour of confidence shattered and I fell back, stumbled on a small crevasse on the dirt, probably carved by a small winter stream that was now dry, and sharp rocks scratched my hands. I fussed, kicking dirt and ran away in a straight line more or less, zig zagging through the forest.
The minute must have been up, well, minutes ago but I still ran till I found the far end of the forest. It came to a wide road, after that were condos. I looked back, panting, but not that much, checked the time, confirmed that I was running away from my shadow for a good six minutes and turned to walk back.
Then the adrenaline left me and the pain kicked in. Cramps, scratched arms, a pounding head, a wheezing chest. Boy, was I out of practice. I promised myself I’d hit the gym tomorrow.
I was calm, body aching, walking slowly back at my ‘camp.’
Then a bat flew over my head, scared me shitless and I ran the rest of the way.
The fourth attack found me up a tree.
I know, I know. She floats. Yeah, you can say that, sitting in your cozy bed, hugging your pillow tight, safe and sound. It was impossible at that point for me to think properly. It was around two o’clock, I hadn’t slept all night even though I thought I’d manage to sneak in a nap, and I was aching and tired and terrified.
It seemed like a good idea at the time, climbing up a tree to avoid something that followed me. When she came, she lifted her head straight at me and began climbing the trunk of the tree as if lifting herself from her fingers. But it felt wrong somehow, you know, not… realistic.
Who cares, as soon as she got up to me I leapt down in a soft patch of shrubbery and ran away. At least I tried, cause my leg hurt like hell and I couldn’t move.
The Erinyes stayed above me for a few seconds, still holding on to the tree. I looked up, a tiny ray of hope in me, that she maybe was too dumb to get down, that I had found an Achilles Heel. I rubbed my leg and looked at her.
Then she dove down, falling, her toga rippling on the air, but impossibly slow, as if a different sort of gravity applied to her. I twisted my body to the side and barely missed her nails coming down on my leg, but her hair caught up to me. They billowed and spun, grabbing my throat. A flashback of the previous encounter where she had choked me came to me, and I decided not to let her do it again. I thrashed, kicked, yelled, threw dirt. I’m not sure how but I did manage to get out of her hair (pun alert!), and I stood up in pain and ran away.
The fifth attack was at daybreak.
I was out of my mind at that point. Exhausted, terrified. She appeared in a circle of streetlight. I did a u-turn, fell on my old school’s metal railings and tried to climb up. She approached, and I let go of that plan and simply ran up some wide steps, paved with rocks at a side of the forest. She followed. I ran to the adjoining street, between cars. She followed. I ran to a house, trying to find a spot to climb a fence, looking frantically around. She followed. I ducked behind a car, tried to hold my breath so as to not give me away. She appeared over the hood of the car, following me. I ran back into the forest, fumbled, scraped my knee for the tenth time on the uneven ground and lost my flashlight. She followed. I ran into the dark forest, jumped over a rock, found a large, old tree with a wide trunk and hid behind it, my back to it. She followed.
I cried. I just cried. I couldn’t take it anymore.
I couldn’t move.
I just sat there, on the ground, my back to the tree. Waiting for her to get me. Her seconds were up, she never came.
- Writer
