Hellbound - 001/Henry Creel/Peter Ballard

018

Eve - 005

The howls and growls of the monsters chase behind me. I feel as if the walls are closing in as the distance between them and me lessens dangerously. I don't look back at them, not just yet.

If I look back right now, I'll be terrified and if I terrorize myself I'll lose the battle. I can't lose it yet, not if I want to get back home safe and stay alive.

So I run, I run faster than I have entire life, as fast as my feet can take me. I run for my future, for my incomplete life, for the things I have yet to live. I run, even if I don't know where my haven is, or what it is for that matter, but I run regardless.

I don't want to die in this red hell of peculiar creatures and nightmares. I run for Henry, who's sleeping next to my vacant body in another universe.

Part of me wishes that he was with me right now, that I wouldn't have to face this alone. He wouldn't flee like I am right now, he would persist and resist and stand his ground, even that meant killing the monsters one by one.

But the other part of me doesn't want him anywhere near this place, this part of me wants to shield him of all the nightmares I've witnessed here.

I can feel my energy levels depleting faster than they should. My feet beg me to give up, to lay down and never walk again. To let those monsters consume me until I'm nothing but bones licked clean. I weaken with every step I take, and my once confident and fast run turns into a drunkenly one that makes me stumble every now and then and lose precious time. All my muscles scream at me to stop, their shrieks of pain echo through my body but I don't stop.

Not just 

I wind through the low branches of blood red trees that scrape my body if I don't mind my limbs.

I look behind at the pack of monsters chasing after me.

They are too many. I can't handle them all.

Sharp pieces of stray wood pierce the skin of my feet but I ignore them despite the shock of pain they send throughout me, and I stumble when a particularly big piece stabs my right foot.

I glance down at it momentarily, seeing the blood ooze out from it, my head spinning just at the sight of blood. I feel like emptying my stomach but I know better than that.

I direct my eyes somewhere else, but everything about this place reminds me of a bloody universe.

Everything is red and dark. Everything looks more sinister than usual. Everything looks the same, but it feels wrong. There is no color here. Just the hues of red.

I don't know why I came here, but I did regardless. When I woke up here I thought that it would be a good idea to explore this entirely foreign to me world. I wanted to learn more about it, to find the puzzle pieces needed to finish the mystery of whatever this is.

I wanted to be less clueless. I was brave, but now I wish that I hadn't been.

I scream with anguish as the pain worsens and the creatures come closer to me.

Their jaws snap at me, threatening me with their cracked and yellowed out teeth. They hiss at me like snakes, but they look like a bear's and a dog's child. This place might look like earth, but the creatures here are certainly not earth-like.

One of them bites my ankle, making me stumble to the ground and the rest of them follow suit. I feel teeth sink into the flesh of my arms, legs and torso.

My hands try to push them away, but they're far too strong for me.

I direct my palm to the one attacking my right leg and feel the power rush out of me. The creature scrambles away and hits the trunk of a tree and lays unmoving on the dirt.