From the Ashes

2

Daisy sprints up the stairs and enters her bedroom. She tosses her school bag on her light blue bedspread and begins to pull out athletic clothing from her closet. After a long day of school, a run is the only thing on her mind.

Once Daisy is dressed she's back out the door and running to the park across the street.

Leaves fly through the air as the wind gusts, littering the once spotless park with the symbols of fall. A single, red leaf falls onto her head as she passes by the tree it was once attached to. Daisy picks the leaf out of her golden blonde hair, letting it fall to the ground, to join the rest of its kind. Once it hits the pavement, she takes off, resuming her run.

She grips her phone firmly in her hand, securing it in her palm. Connected to her phone is a pair of earbuds, though only one is actually being used. As she passes a middle-aged man with an untrustworthy gaze, her body tenses and she trains her eyes strictly on the trail in front of her. Further down the trail, she sees another man, younger than the previous. The grip on the phone in her hand tightens and she instinctively turns the music down.

Eventually, Daisy finds herself on a more narrow path in a deeper part of the woods behind the park. Feeling more at ease when she is finally alone, she wears both earbuds now.

Some way down the trail, a thorn bush catches on her bare calf, causing her to stop. Her hand brushes over the small scratch, examining the damage. She decides to ignore the slight pain of her new wound and continues to run.

The snapping of twigs echoes through the empty forest, but the girl doesn't hear anything as she listens to her playlist. A rustling of leaves comes from her left, but still, she fails to notice, immersed too deeply in her music.

It isn't until she catches a glimpse of a dark figure in the corner of her eye, that she stops. Her hands quickly move up to her earbuds, pulling them out. She tries to listen for a sign of what she saw, but all that she can hear is the rapid thumping of her heart in her chest. Her eyes remain unmoving, trained on the spot where she thought she saw something.

After a few minutes, she decides that it must have just been a squirrel, and moves on. This time, her pace is quicker. Every few seconds she glances over her shoulder. Every time she looks, there is still nothing there.

After five minutes pass, her pace slows and she tries to relax. The idea that something was out there was now just a figment of her imagination, or at least that's what she convinced herself. She now can just barely see the end of the trail through the trees, where it opens up into a suburban neighborhood. The trees thin out closer and closer to the houses. The moon that just pokes through the canopy of leaves, now shines through them, making the path completely lit and visible.

Once Daisy has completely relaxed is when the animal that had been trailing her attacks from behind.

A piercing scream echoes through the air as it digs its teeth into her neck. Daisy fights her hardest against the animal, but it refuses to budge. Its long, sharp nails dig harder into her biceps every time she moves.

As soon as its teeth leave her neck, it's gone.

Tears fall onto the dirt path and she falls to her knees. Her golden hair is stained at the tips in red, and the same red is dripping from her neck onto her hands. Through the blur of tears, she does her best to examine the holes from the claws on her arms. She instantly decides that they were definitely not from a squirrel. There were ten of them; five in each arm, one for each claw.

As fast as she can, Daisy sprints back home, doing her best to ignore the searing pain that was still shooting up her arms and neck.

Daisy struggles to enter the still dark and silent house. The first aid kit drops onto the kitchen counter with a thud. Not bothering to close the cabinets, she grabs the bag and slumps into a kitchen chair.