Nausea: Sequel to Warcrossed

Hunted

I wasn't in the building for very long before I ran away.

I'd looked around, and it felt like hours, like time was warped in those walls, but the sun still shone and the breeze was still there. The forest seemed all the more horrifying without a path to follow, and I was halfway certain I knew where I was going. I felt like prey, being stalked, with that man running behind me. I could hear his heavy footsteps off, more and more distant, but I wasn't an idiot and didn't dare to slow down. 

Nobody would find my body if he gained on me. I'd be dead and it wouldn't be slow. I would suffer horribly, plagued by an awful headache and an ever-aching arm. Seizures and fainting spells would haunt me along with what I'd seen in there before it would finally, finally be over.

And even though I wanted to die, just a little, I wanted it to be fast. Like Lafayette, with the potassium chloride I'd used to stop his heart. 

My legs and lungs burned. And none of the surroundings looked right, and the path wasn't showing up to lead me out. I looked behind me, and he was coming, gaining on me. I'd probably slowed down without noticing it. My options were to either try and climb a tree or to fight, and I didn't have a weapon.

My hands weren't as calloused as in my childhood, so they were all scratched up by the time I was halfway up the rough tree. I settled in a nook of branches that seemed perfect for me, my back against the truck. I tried not to make a sound and recall what I just had to look at. It didn't make sense to me yet, but it was definitely the fact I hadn't thought about it yet. I needed to put it together, and fast.