Caught by Death

I need to get away. The wolves are gaining on me. I pump my legs faster, generating adrenalin. My hair flails wildly as I pick up speed, my breath puffs out in short sporadic gasps. I know I can’t go much farther, but I have to try. I drag my legs forward, still running, though it doesn’t come as easy now, its as if I am wading through honey, pulling my legs through quicksand that is tugging me away from my survival. The wolves behind me let out a guttural growl and snap at my ankles, gaining on me. I see light filter through the trees ahead, turned red by the eclipse. I race towards it, bursting forth with the last of my energy, leaving the forest behind. There is a cliff, and I run towards it, the wolves still behind me. I slow to a halt on the edge while the wolves circle me. I am surrounded.

Closing my eyes I wait for death to take me. Seconds tick by, and when death doesn’t come, I open my eyes. The wolves are gone, in their place; a cloaked figure stands, facing the forest that lead me here. I move to get closer to the figure, but my foot slips on the rocks and I fall. My body twists as I plummet. Vainly I whip my hand out, searching for purchase, and I grab hold of a root I shout for the stranger to help me, and I can hear their cloak swishing against the ground as they move closer. I can see his shadow fall over me; I call for his help, panic lacing my words. Slowly, and very precisely, he crouches down and lowers his hood. His beautiful face is pale as death, accented by high cheekbones, and his hair, black as the night, all bathed in an eerie red glow from the eclipse that shines down on us. When I see his eyes I gasp, my hand slipping from the root that holds me from deaths claws.

As I plunge to my death, my mind is filled with images of those eyes, crimson, and filled with lust and anger. What kinds of life has this strangely beautiful man lead to make his eyes tortured and filled with blood, what has made him so angry. What did he want from me that made that maddening streak of lust appear in his eyes? I looked down and noticed I was about to strike the ground, and braced myself for every bone in my body to snap, when a black figure furled down from the cliffs, and gabbed me, soaring up to safety. I thought we were going to land but the man suddenly twisted off course and flew in a different direction, I looked at him, and he lowered his eyes to me, pain and remorse flooding his dangerous, wanting eyes, “I’m sorry” he whispered in a voice like velvet, and he continued flying away from everything I knew.