DAERIN | ONE SHOTS🔞

into the woods

Shit.

The sleeve of Danielle's blouse snags on a sharp tree branch, renting from her forearm up to the shoulder. She winces at the shallow but lengthy nick in her flushed skin, but she can't stop to worry about it. Not now, not tonight. Her lungs burn, aching from the exertion but she pushes herself to race forward.

What started out as a relaxing evening in her family cabin, secluded in an intimate corner of the woods several miles outside Metropolis, quickly morphed into something much more pulse pounding.

It had sounded like such innocent fun when she first floated the idea. A lighthearted chase through the thick forest, her feline super-powered girlfriend never far behind.

Haerin was hesitant at first, but soon acquiesced, wanting to be open to trying new things. The jaunt sounded simple enough, a pursuit through the woods, upping the ante by doing so at night. After all, if they were going to do this, Danielle wanted to go all the way in. It was supposed to be playful, like a game of footsie under the table during family dinner.

Danielle was wrong. So very, very wrong.

She keeps up the sprint as fast as she can.

The pounding of her heart like a battering ram against her ribcage, the rush of blood roaring through her veins drowns out the snap of dry branches and the crunch of woodland debris under her tired feet as she runs blindly through the woods.

The full moon above provides poor illumination as it barely penetrates the dense tree canopy blanketing out most of the midnight sky.

Intellectually she knows, she knows, there isn't anything to fear. This is just a scenario, one of many, she's played out with Haerin. This is just a game. But what she did not account for was that her body would not be able to differentiate between running for her life for fun and running for her life for real.

Her heart beats as wildly as it would when she stares down the barrel of an assassin's gun or free-falls off her office balcony, nosediving towards the hard concrete below. Only then, Supergirl would come, all handsome and heroic in full regalia, strong arms holding Danielle close and eyes raining down fire on those who sought to harm what was hers.

But now, Danielle's running like hell away from that hero, from that source of strength and security.

Shit!

A shrill scream climbs out of Danielle's throat when a blast as sharp as a gunshot whips by just a hair's breadth away from her cheek. The trees bow under the force and speed of it, several leaves shaken loose from the rattled branches.

Danielle startles from the quick, scorching heat, losing her footing over a gnarled root she failed to notice. Momentum far too great, propelling her forward in an unbalanced lurch.

She hurdles forward in a dive, rolling over like a tumble weed through the mess of ferns and shrubs, landing flat and breathless on her back. Her vision swims for a moment, chest heaving as her lungs greedily fill up with oxygen.

Something zooms closer and lands with an earth-shaking thud nearby.

Danielle lays there for a moment, brain frantically trying to recalibrate, heart beating a panicked staccato hard against her ribs. She stares up at the thick tree cover, fighting to catch her breath and her lungs burn behind her sternum. A new sound cuts through the noise of nature around her.

A hum, light and almost cheery. Melodic. Beautiful. Followed by heavy footfalls and Danielle's heart seizes up in her quivering chest.

"Wow, you made it so much further than I thought you would," Haerin calls into the night, her tone as light and airy as her humming was. "Even with that fifteen-minute head start. But seriously, Danielle. Did you really think I wouldn't be able to find you?"