No Light: 3 Lives, 3 Worlds , Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms AU

Part 8: Si Yin?

Pain. All over my body.

That was my first thought.

It was the ache on my forehead. The blood on my fingers.

Had I fallen?

It was the stitch in my side. The fear lodged in my throat. The burn in my lungs, the harsh breath in my throat, the sandpaper quality of my tongue.

I was suffocating, but I couldn't give into the darkness.

Was I running towards something? Away from it? All I knew at that moment was that I had been running for so long that time had lost all meaning. I only knew one thing, I had to keep on running.

Hearing the sound behind me, I remembered. I was being chased by yet another ferocious creature. I knew that if it caught me, it would eat me, crunch my bones and swallow my blood.

I would be no more.

Why had I thought this was a good idea? Why was I here when I could be in my small hut, eating my berries in relative safety? Nothing had come to bother me ever since I'd awakened after the battle with the Scarlet Flame lion.

I sobbed, even as I continued to run, as the noises grew louder behind me. It was getting closer, and HE hadn't come.

Along with the fear, the fatigue, the realization had finally set in. He wouldn't come today and save me.

No one would.

I was going to die because of my own stupidity. I firmed my lips in determination, even as I huffed along. My death would not come at the hands of that monster behind me. I would not be someone else's food. I continued to run, pumping my arms, taking deep, gasping breaths. I hadn't survived this long, suffering through the solitude and bone deep loneliness every single moment of my existence to lose my life to that creature.

"There you are. Got you!" a fearsome voice thundered triumphantly from behind me.

Looking back, I could almost see the whites of the creature's eyes. It smiled, flashing its serrated teeth, his malevolent intent quite apparent. It lunged at me, and I changed direction, jumping out of its reach.

I ran, continuing to look over my shoulder, and that was my mistake. I forgot to look ahead, and so missed the fact that in two steps, there would be nothing beneath my feet.

Suddenly, I was in the air, having left the ground behind. I had no wings to fly. My terrified gaze looked down, below my feet. I saw the rocks, their sharp points reaching towards me. I would land on those unforgiving things, and my body would break.

My hands flashed out, flailing, hoping to grasp something to save myself from the agonizing death awaiting. My frantic gaze caught those of the creature standing at the edge. It growled in frustration. And I forgot the mortal danger I was in for a brief moment, allowing me the chance to smile tauntingly at it, exultant that it would not get my meat and bones today.

Turning my thoughts away from it and into myself, I despairingly cried out for the man who hadn't come. Time, which had been rapidly rushing past, suddenly slowed down so that each second became a lifetime, and I lived through several lifetimes in those seconds.

It was his fault that I was here today.

I had pined for him, hoping that he would return. When he hadn't, days turning into weeks, into months and then years, I had concocted this plan out of desperation. When I heard about the creature killing the folks here, I had traveled to this location, hoping that he would come to slay the ferocious being terrorizing the people of this mountain. Instead of spying him in battle, the creature had seen me. And, but for meeting that immortal, I would not have lost my life today.