Mornings of Gold (a Jareth and Sarah fanfiction)

Chapter Thirteen

She was going to die.

    The light growing up ahead was Sarah's only chance of escape. The relentless pounding of her shoes on the crumbling soil beneath them jarred her bones. Her breathing was laboured, her throat burning. The thing she ran from had given up on subtlety long ago, and she could hear its paws thundering against the ground much faster than her own footsteps.

    The corridor was probably bright enough now to see the creature chasing her, but Sarah didn't dare look back and risk slowing down. She continued to sprint, her legs threatening to collapse from under her. Her body was crying out for her to stop, but she ignored it and ran faster still. Any hesitation now would cost her her life, she knew.

    Sarah glanced towards the opening ahead of her. Just a minute or so more and she'd be out in the open... or so she hoped. She had no idea where this pathway was leading – what if there were more of whatever was after her waiting at the other end? Like an ambush?

    Sarah yelled in fury and used her last ounce of energy to throw herself into the last stretch of sprinting. It paid off and she was out of the tunnel in moments. The sunlight was blinding – so blinding that she didn't see the tree root lying in front of her.

    She swore and crashed to the floor, the impact made by her body on the hard-packed earth sending up a thick cloud of dust. The thing was on her immediately, pinning her down. She caught a flash of matted black fur before fear forced her eyes shut and her legs out. She kicked with all her might, screaming through gritted teeth to channel her energy into her blows. Grim satisfaction coursed through her as her feet met something living and solid, earning a yelp of pain from her attacker. The weight holding her down lessened slightly, enabling her to shoot out from under it and get to her feet. She opened her eyes and cast around for an escape route. All she could see were trees, so she headed for the closest and scaled it like a cat. Once she figured she was a safe height above the ground, she chanced a look down.

    Her stomach clenched, and she forced bile back down her throat as she finally caught a glimpse of the thing that had been chasing her. It must've been a mammal of some description, but it was huge: the size of a tiger, each of its four paws could have suffocated her easily if they had been placed over her face. Each digit was tipped with a wicked-looking talon. Its fur was black, as she'd seen previously, and tangled to the point of becoming almost a second hide. When it raised its ugly head to where she perched, Sarah nearly passed out at the glare its all-white eyes fixed her with.

    The thing howled up at her, clearly infuriated at having been momentarily cheated out of its meal, and with a horrifying lurch Sarah wondered if it was calling for backup. She shuffled further up the branch she crouched on – had she heard a crack? Sarah's head turned to where the branch was connected to the main trunk of the tree, and sucked in an anxious breath. The branch was splintering at its base. As she watched in terror, another flake of bark broke off and tumbled to the leafy floor below.

    The animal was prowling menacingly beneath her branch, but it seemed not to have noticed the worrying speed at which it was breaking. Sarah thought quickly. She couldn't reach any of the higher branches: the tree grew up smooth and unclimbable, and they all looked much thinner than the one she sat on. There was a thicker, more sturdy-looking branch just under her own, but it was the last – and lowest – branch on the tree. If she caught it right when she fell she would probably make it, but if she slipped or messed up by a millimetre, it might give way. Or worse, she could miss it entirely.

    Sarah's whole body shifted and she almost lost her grip as her branch really started to give way. One more little snap and it would be too late. This had to be it.