Never Seen Again

The Victims

Autumn's POV

I did the first thing I could think of ... RUN. I ran as if my life depended on it. Well... it did. Branches whipped me, leaving cuts and scratches. My dark hair got caught on branches, slowing me down. Shadows loomed over me, about to eat me whole. I could hear stomps behind us and loud sounds of splintering wood. The thundering footsteps became slower and softer. The black creature had slowed down to catch it's breath. I think I'm hallucinating. I keep seeing flashes of glowing smoke around me. Letting my legs rest for a second, I slowed down enough to catch a wisp of smoke form a distinguishable shape. A girl, around my age, but for some reason I couldn't focus on her face. She was running,  her wispy hair floating behind her. She dodged around trees that weren't there anymore, jumped over non-existent roots and ran through existing trees. It was like she was from the past. A shadow that took the shape of a monster overtook her, and she was gone. A victim of the beast.

"And the girls were never seen again" I whispered to myself, "The sentence that started all of this..."

"THAT'LL BE YOUR FUTURE IF YOU DON'T SPEED UP!" Lynn shouted as she passes me. 

She was right. The beast quickly resumed running at a faster pace. I broke into a full sprint. I saw dim light up ahead. Both Terry and Lynn were going towards it. I decided to follow them. We stumbled into a village square, struggling to breathe. We all met eyes. It was silent. The stomps stopped. We were glad the beast wasn't chasing us, but the silence seemed to swallow all life. The light was provided from a single, sad, flickering street lamp. The dull gray stones underneath our feet were cracked and ancient. The village seemed like it was deserted in the 1800's.

"I got a bad feeling about this," Lynn implied. Her voice echoed around the square, bouncing off walls that haven't been touched in a long time.

"Are we going to almost die again?!" Terry said sarcastically, "Because that sounds fun!"             

"Shut up Teresa," Lynn said quietly. Terry replied with a middle finger in Lynn's Direction. We only referred to her as her real name under extreme conditions, and she knew that, shown by the terror in her forest green eyes.

I heard cracking. A large shadowy figure was running towards the entrance of the square. We all backed up instinctively. A loud bang sent us all running. It was as if it banged into an invisible wall. Then there was silence.

We all stopped running. I looked back at ntrance to the square, expecting to see the beast running towards us. All I saw was another house. We were trapped.