I am a pebble in its shoe.
A speck of dust.
Insignificant, bothersome and easily dealt with.
It squeezes harder, the casing of ice shattering and transforming it into shards that slice into my skin with their biting cold. Every place where one breaks the skin, I can feel the warmth of my blood as it trickles out. It almost makes me grateful for the pain, because in each spot, there’s a tiny war being fought for the temperature of that scrap of skin.
The pain and the warmth bolster me so that I can move the tiniest bit. At first, I’m just shaking, shivering from the cold, but it’s more movement than I’ve been able to accomplish for seconds… minutes… hours?
As I tremble, I warm, my movements correspondingly larger, more erratic. When I feel strong enough, warm enough, I plant my feet and jump, launching myself from the train car. The top of my body breaks free, though fog sucks at my legs, so that I fall forwardonto my face. I scrabble at the ground, clinging to twigs and snow, attempting to find purchase. Rocks scrape at my hands, and now that I am free of the dark, I can see that I am spreading my blood over the snow with every move.
Then, in the dim moonlight, I spot it—a tree branch curving up and out of the snow, just a bump, but it’s something stable that might allow me to free myself. The bark bites into my already raw hands, but it only serves to tell me that it is solid. That this is something that I can depend upon. Unsurprisingly, my noodle arms struggle to move me—my bottom half has always been where I carry most of my weight—but I reach into the depths of my being and find the strength only available in life-or-death situations.
Because there is no doubt in my mind that if I let the fog suck me back, Iwilldie.
I scream, a deep, guttural thing torn from the very depths of my being to propel me forward. I flail my legs, kicking to free them.
Inch by inch, I drag my body further away from the subway and the fog, reclaiming my sanity and self in one fell swoop. When the last sucking tendril releases my foot, I tuck my legs up, away from the train.
“Please stand clear of the closing doors,” Frank Oglesby, forever the voice of the T in my head, intones, and the doors slam shut so quickly I’d have lost a leg. As soon as they are closed, the T barrels off into the night, the loudness of its clacking on the rails emphasized by the eerie quiet of the forest once it’s gone.
My breath pants out of me, disturbing the silence. I shiver. I don’t know if I am just still freezing or if I’m in shock, but my body responds the same either way. I hang my head, still lying atop the snow now red with my blood and brown from the dirt I’ve managed to scrabble up.
For long moments, I hear nothing but myself. It isn’t to last, though, because with a dread that permeates to mybones, I know—the second I hear the twig snap—that I am not alone.
The forest reveals nothing in the night. Every tree casts a shadow that could hide any manner of dangers. A bear, the rare cougar, a rabid raccoon, or worst of all, an angry bull moose.
No, not worst of all.
Worst of all is humans.
Ignoring the stinging cuts all over my body, I push onto my hands and knees so I can stand. Once upright, I pause, listening.
Another twig snaps, and I whip my head in that direction, squinting into the night in an attempt to spot what hunts me.
I shuffle away from the sound. I’m already turning to run when I hear it, so deep it's almost imperceptible.
A laugh.
I gasp, turning and willing my exhausted body to grant me this one further thing. Get me out of here. Get me to safety.
As I run, trees whip my naked body, leaving welts that I cannot acknowledge.
Wait, naked?
Glancing briefly down, I can see that I am, in fact, naked.
Damn it.
The fog must have shattered my clothing along with the ice. Thankfully, my feet are numb from the cold, so I don’t feel the poking of twigs or the bite of the snow. Unfortunately, though, it also means I am much clumsier than I would be otherwise. Instead of shifting when I encounter a rock, I stumble. Narrow miss after narrow miss drives me forward, though I know it’s only a matter of time until I’m flat on my face with my hunter at my back.
He laughs again, closer this time, and his voice, one I know so well, calls out into the night. “Running from me now, Princess?”
It’s not justanyhunter behind me, it’s my nightmare. In perhaps the most unhinged thought I’ve ever had, I almost stop and wait for him. Luckily, sane Ada is driving this body, and I continue running. He might have gotten me off once, but I have a much longer history that tells me that letting him catch me is dangerous.
Behind me, his footsteps are slow and steady, as if he’s in no rush, but still, they grow nearer and nearer.
“Oh, Princess, running from me is adangerouschoice. Who knows what I’ll do to you once I catch you?”
