Through the Trees [DEMO]

2 - Eyes Like Broken Christmas Lights

"Shit..." Jeff muttered as the sirens got louder. He knew he probably should've looked for a quieter way inside. He knew that the houses around them had probably heard the door shattering and woman screaming and called 911 after possibly seeing the smashed glass. And here he thought he wasn't going to get caught. Curse him and his cocky nature.

Stupid fuckin' neighbors... He thought to himself, frustrated. The killer looked around the area, checking to make sure he wasn't leaving anything important behind. He rubbed the blood off of his knife and stuffed it in his pocket, making sure his other belongings were in there too. He was good to go.

Jeff quickly took his not-so white hoodie off, knowing if he kept it on it would be like strapping a neon sign to his back that said "I'm here! Come arrest me!" as he made his escape. He tied it around his waist and moved out of the bedroom to the window in the loft as quickly as possible, trying to avoid being seen from any of the front windows. The window was unlocked but it had one of those stupid insect screens over it that were ridiculously hard to remove, meaning more work for the killer.

"Motherfucker... I don't have time for this shit...!" He muttered as he took out his backup knife and began slicing a hole in the screen large enough for him to crawl through. He managed to succeed and began crawling out of the window leg first, his now exposed arms gaining several tiny cuts as they brushed against the now jagged mesh edges. Jeff ignored the pain, the combination of adrenaline and emotional frustration partially numbing it to the point where he couldn't feel it. He dropped out of the window and onto the ground, once again ignoring the pain that shot through his ankles upon impact. It was only a jump from the second story, so nothing was broken, but the force of the fall was still pretty intense.

The moment his feet hit the ground, Jeff sprinted through the backyard just as the flashes of red and blue lights were becoming visible. He could see them shining on the grass beneath him as he sprinted towards the forest, thanking whatever higher being that existed that he'd made it this far. He was just about to make it into the trees when he heard a voice yell from behind him;

"He's headed for the woods!"

Shit shit shit shit shit-! Jeff thought as he continued running. He got to the forest but didn't stop, for he could now hear the sound of two, maybe three police officer's footsteps pursuing him. If he could hear them, then that meant that they were close. Too close.

The killer continued to run, not stopping even once. He didn't even think, he just moved, focusing on putting as much distance between himself and the cops as possible. It wasn't until he was deep into the woods - as in, no-other-civilization-in-sight deep - that he realized he couldn't hear the officer's footsteps anymore. Hell, he couldn't even hear their voices or see the flashing lights anymore.

After what felt like hours of aimlessly sprinting through the forest, Jeff finally slowed down, stopping to catch his breath. He looked around at his surroundings, double checking to make sure he really had lost the cops. Darkness surrounded him, no flashlights or evidence of humans being near could be seen. He could only see the faint outline of trees and branches around him.

He let out a sigh of relief. He was this far into the woods, there was no way they could catch him now! All he had to do now was find the portal that would take him back to the Under Realm and-!

snap

The sound of a tree branch breaking to the killer's left made his train of thought stop immediately. He whirled his head around in that direction and could see the outline of a person standing a few feet away from him. Jeff froze, unsure if the person had seen him or not. He couldn't make out any particular details about the person aside from the fact that they were short, they couldn't have been more than 5 feet tall. He could probably take them in a fight if he needed to.