If he just went north...if he just made it to the other side...
The monster would release him from the hunt.
He felt the aspen trees watching him as he walked. They stood over him, pale as clean-picked bones, and rattled as a cold wind sighed past their skeletal branches.
“Wake up,” Kinlear whispered again.
He never knew just when the monster would strike. But he was certain, the second he’d entered these woods...the hunt had already begun.
He wouldn’t make it easy, at least.
For here, in his dreams, he was fast and strong. Whatever illness he’d been born with could not follow him here, so he was able to run the way other children could. He was able to breathe without feeling like his lungs were full of glass.
He took a left, and leapt over a fallen tree, landing with ease. And certainly, without that nagging sense ofquittingthat always whispered a promise to his bones. His lungs did not quiver as the forest stretched on around him.
As he curved deeper into the land of dreams.
Sometimes, when he was here...he pretended he was like Arawn. Strong and brave and meant for more than the grave.
The forest remained largely the same, until he found the frozen river. It was there like a scar in the earth, a shining ribbon of silvery white. Each time he reached this river, it began to snow.
Fat white flakes began to tumble down around him. The frozen river spiderwebbed beneath his feet as a fresh layer of frost took shape.
“No,” Kinlear breathed.
It always grew coldest, when the monster was nearby.
He couldn’t see it. But he could feel its eyes upon him, hungry for blood.
He blinked, and the forest shifted. No longer was the ground barren. Now it was thick with a blanket of snow, so deep it reached his knees.
He trudged on, heading north.
But soon came the sound of labored breathing from behind him. And as the wind blew, it was thick with the reek and rot of death.
“Wake up,” Kinlear told himself, as he pushed through the snow.
The cold ate at his bones.
Soon, he feared, they would crack. He feared he would stop moving entirely.
Something behind himsnapped.
“Princelingggg.”
The monster’s voice was a raw hiss of a whisper that sent a bolt of panic thrumming up and down his spine.
“Why do you run from me?”
“No,” Kinlear gasped, as the snow rose to his chest. “You’re not real.”
Ghostly laughter echoed off the trees.
“Poor little Princeling,” called the monster. “I can see your soul. And it aches to know me.”
He could feel its breath now, hot against his back. It was the only warmth he’d felt since he entered this space.
He wanted nothing of it.
