Betrayal

They struck from behind, stealthily creeping up on me where I sat on the dank soil, chest heaving after their latest strike, when I thought I was safe.
Terror coursed through me and a primal instinct thrust my battered body forwards, away from the peril, away from the menace, away from the threat of losing everything I had ever known.
Stumbling through the murky forest, legs quivering, searing pain alive in my arm, I heard the heavy thud of footsteps steadily gaining on me, ready to tear me from my life and slip me into a hole in the shadows of legality and morality that I would never emerge from, at least not as myself.
My chest heaves and burns as I desperately gulp down air.
Gravel clanks and rattles all the way down the edge of the chasm I run next to.
I remind myself of every reason I have for not giving up, for fighting to live out another day in freedom, but I am broken. I cannot go on any longer. I search for that hidden reservoir of strength inside me to call on, but I find nothing.
I lose my unsteady grip on the rocky ground as muscular men dart from the shadows and one scarred hand shoves me towards the edge.

A dizzying sense of vertigo envelopes me as I plunge down and down and down.