I ran as though my life depended on it. Branches tore at my ankles and legs. My bare feet—caked with blood and mud and who knew what else—slammed into the forest floor, again and again and again. It hurt. Everything hurt.
It didn’t hurt enough.
I pushed harder, faster, my lungs on fire and my chest tightening like a vise around my heart.
I couldn’t run like this indefinitely. I couldn’t keep going, but I couldn’t stop. Muscles screaming, heart pounding—any second, my body would give in. Any second, it would be over.
No.
I fought. I fought to breathe, fought to hold on, to keep going, to—
Survive.
There it was: a whisper from somewhere deep inside of me, a familiar feeling creeping up my spine. I tasted copper on the tip of my tongue, and my vision—already blurred—shifted.
Red, red.
