One Word Short

Run

TW: A description of a panic attack.

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

He burst through the bushes and trees that surrounded him for miles around, pushing away branches that scraped along his arms like dozens of sharp rocks. The… The thing, the thing that thunked that followed him was… something not right, something not from here- full of creaky joints and hisses and thunks, destroying every bit of the trees and plants that it encountered, something that was not meant to be- and it was chasing him.

He did what any sane man would do. He ran. And ran. He was still running now, while his muscles screamed to just hide, to just stop, where his lungs burned as if he was inhaling fire and yet he still gasped to breath, where his heart thudded and thudded in his chest and filled his hearing with its beat above the loud thunking slowly getting closer… And closer…

There was a massive jump up ahead, where the trees arched overhead, but the ground fell straight down to a river below. He had been across that ravine many times before, and he knew the process to get across it like the back of his hand- he hoped with all his heart the… whatever it is behind him wouldn’t know anything about it at all, and be too heavy to follow in his footsteps.

Focus…

At the edge of the ravine, he jumped with the power and certainty of a tiger, wind flying through his hair, and grabbed onto one of the branches hanging down from the arc of trees overhead. With a kick he swung and flew through the air, then landed in an ungraceful, aching heap on the other side. His muscles collapsed into the ground, relieved to have finally stopped for a few moments. It would be okay now, he was safe. All the same… There was an instinct telling him he had to keep an eye on it. Incase it could get over the ravine. He forced himself to sit up, to watch whatever was watching him...

It was the first time he was able to get a proper look at... whatever it was. It was made of something… Something shaped like the biggest man he had ever seen, grey-bluish, like the sky, and it glinted in the light of sun. If it wasn’t currently chasing him, he might’ve thought it was just something pretty. It stood stationary at the side of the ravine for a few moments, and he thought that might be it, that he escaped, but then a strange sound started to emit from it. A kind of whirr sound. Then fire burst from its feet and it flew across the ravine like an eagle.

In his panic he found the energy needed to push himself up. He ran.

All he could hear in his ears was the sound of his own breath, the beating of his heart now faster from the hysterical panic he felt from the fact that this contraption, this deviously pretty contraption could summon fire and use it to fly, he had to get away, he had to… He had to get away…

His eyes darted from side to side, finding someplace he could hide. He had to hide if he couldn’t run, right? There was plenty of hiding places in the forest, but he had to find the right opportunity to get away, or he’d be found. And who knows what it would do to him. He didn’t want to find out.

It didn’t take long until he found a place where the foliage around him laid thick, and he darted into the bushes and crouched down. His breath was still heavy and short, but he only thought about how still he had to be, to make sure that thing couldn’t see him.

At first, it seemed to have worked. It marched past him. He found himself beginning to relax, already mentally celebrating his getaway, before it stopped. Slowly, it turned to lock straight on where he was. He froze. He hoped it was just a coincidence. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t move he couldn’t move he couldn’t move-

A massive, cold hand reached out and grabbed him around the waist, lifting him up in the air. There was a ringing in his ears, but he could still hear something that sounded like… Cheering, from what was holding him. They were yelling something in a language he didn’t understand, but they didn’t do anything but hold him up. He didn’t understand. He didn’t know what they were doing, or who they were. His vision spun in front of him, his breath came out too short to properly breathe, his heart hurt so much, he felt nauseous, he didn’t understand…

He blacked out.