The eyes of death

Rattling breaths are drawn from rasping lungs. The air, steamy with the breath of something on the run. Foot falls heavy against the fallen leaves. If you were to look into their eyes at that moment all you would see is stark terror, death reflected behind them, a silent understanding of inevitability. Cold tear drops fall from their face, whether they're from the sting of cold or the sadness of their fleeting life it's impossible to say. If you were to put yourself into the same scenario as them you would be terrified too. If you were to look behind you and see what they saw your breath would catch in your throat, you would cry cold tear drops. It moved on all fours. Stilt like legs stabbing into the ground with jet black claws. Its body was long and furless, its tail long and whiplike. Its head was stained with the rust red of blood,enumerable dagger toothed mouths seemed to swirl and undulate upon its face. Periodically a bloodshot eye would arise to its surface, darting on the red stained blackness hungrily before sinking down once again. It could catch up if it wanted to. It could overtake and sever the limbs of its prey. Yet it strode and chittered and roared and screeched as it chased. It wanted them to feel its presence, smell the stench of cold caked blood. The warm breath on their neck as they dared to slow. It would be known. It would be seen. It would be felt. And as the tears streamed it soon grew nearer and nearer, the claws began to rake upon their back, which the thing then licked with 100 tongues. Would you scream and fall to the ground? Wince and push forward as your lungs protested? They fell. They screamed, hoarse and raspy, as they looked into the ever shifting face and as they looked it stopped swirling, becoming blank. No swirling, no mouths, no eyes. Only the dried blood. Then it screamed. Unholy and cacophonous. Its face arose anew, hundreds of eyes emerged blinking and darting in several directions. It reared up onto its back legs and its head split, and kept splitting, down to the chest. Its eyes moved all over its body, its teeth grew and multiplied to fill the new space that had appeared. It lowered itself slowly and deliberately, eyes no longer twitching, instead focused upon the prey below it. No longer screaming, the person laid, their eyes closed, accepting of the fate consigned to it. Death's embrace was not cold, in fact it was warm and sweet. It flowed over the slowly decaying nerves, calming them. They didn't open their eyes. There were already enough staring.