Fear

I'm running. I'm running past everything into nothing, so afraid of what's behind me. I don't know what it is, but I'm escaping it, or I'm telling myself that I am. I can feel it's hot breath on my neck, the hairs rising in absolute fright at the damp exhalations. The adrenaline is pushing me on. My feet are cold and raw, pounding bare against ice and dirt and sand and snow. It doesn't matter what I'm running on, just that I get away from it.

'What are you running from?'

I can't tell, it's too murky and dark here. Maybe from myself, but I know I'm racing to get away from it. It scares me, it frightens me, I can't even bear to look at it. Its hurting me, everything I know and love, its going to kill me if it catches up with me. I have to get away, to run until its gone, far behind.

'How do you know it's going to kill you?'

It must. I think it killed my families, my friends, my loves, my enemies. It has murdered everyone, mutilated them in it's disgraceful attacks, and now they lie dead so far behind. I've got to live, to survive, so I run farther away from the beast, fleeing the strange urge to find me out to, and to lay my body burning on the heap with the rest of them. I just have to go, keep running, keep slamming my sore feet into the ground until its gone.

'Why are you going so far?'

I've go to move. Its hunting me, chasing me down like prey in some foul maze of it's design. I have to escape it, its going to harm me, kill me, and I'll die. I can't die, its too little to die for, nothing but survival. I have to run, keep going, even though I want to throw myself on the ground, pant, and sleep. I can't. It will find me, it will murder me. I have to keep running.

Oh gods, I can't go any farther. I'm falling but I stumble to stay up. My face slips first, hitting something icy and hot. How did I fall? I don't remember. Something is warm, but wet as it slides against my cheek. It's there. The beast, the hunter, it has found and caught me, I am it's prey delivered up. The heated liquid thing flows into my face, and I am hurt with knowledge as it runs into my eyes. The darkness falls over my vision.

The beast is me.

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