An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
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There’s this distinct sensation of weightlessness to her stomach, a prickling on the back of her neck. Something urges her to make them go faster. It’s that same dread that she feels in the second between turning off the hallway light and bolting back to the safety of her room in the middle of the night. That deep, illogical certainty that there’s something right there in the gaping darkness of the living room, watching, waiting to jump out and grab her.
It’s stupid. Just like the living room is always empty, with the front door locked and the deadbolt still in its place, there is nothing in these woods. She's lived here her entire life and the biggest thing she’d ever seen had been a particularly fat raccoon rooting around their trash one morning.
Knowing it, however, doesn’t help calm her down. Instead the anxiety seems to grow, trickling down her spine in cold waves down to her toes. She squeezes them inside her shoes, pressing herself closer to Will’s back.
Will must have sensed her unease, because the lightness in the air fades as if sucked out by a vacuum cleaner, leaving a distinct metallic tang of fear hanging heavy between them both.
“Can we go faster?” She whispers, fearing her voice hasn’t been heard over the rush of wind around them, but suddenly unable to talk any louder.
“I’m trying.” He answers, just as low. His legs come down harder, the dark trees around them a blur of hair-raising shadows.
The light on Will’s bike flickers.
Immediately, they’re plunged into darkness.
Mia’s heart jumps to her throat. She glances at the faint silhouette of the front of the bike, throat closing up. Will reaches forward to tap the light and Mia reaches forward to steady the handlebars for him. The light flickers back to life – illuminating a dark silhouette just a few feet from them.
Will swerves his bike, Mia’s weight sending them both toppling onto harsh asphalt. She falls on top of Will, mouth smashing onto the back of his head, knees crashing on the gravel beneath.
Her hands burn red-hot for a moment, before the night air suddenly starts to feel way too cold on her skin and on the flaps of it that she feels hanging out of the wide-open cuts on the heels of her palms.
She tries to sit up, to move away from Will but she can’t, legs unresponsive and tangled around him and the bike. Her hands are numb, fingers lax and heavy as if they weren’t even there. Static runs down all her limbs and all she can do is look up and stare, eyes burning as the - the thing stalks forward.
Mia doesn’t even know what it is, the glaring light of Will’s fallen bike hits her right in the eyes, and she can’t see it properly, but it doesn’t look like someone, it doesn’t even look human, oh God it doesn’t even look like an animal –
Will shoves her off him and onto her back. She doesn’t manage to brace herself and her skull cracks on concrete with a sound so loud that she wouldn’t believe it had come from her, had her head not exploded with pain.
A movement in the corner of her eyes. The thing steps closer, a hissing, wet sound coming out of its joints. Above her lips, the cold air fogs up, the taste of her own fear heavy in it. Yellow-tinted and sour like bile.
The world seems to stop moving.
For a split second, Mia has the familiar certainty that she is going to die.
Will’s hand clamps around her wrist, violently pulling her up from the ground, and the world begins to move as if at twice the speed from before.
Mia goes with her brother, shoulder almost popping out of the joint as Will drags her behind him.
She doesn’t think, feet pounding beneath her before she gives her brain the command to run.
And they run, like they’d never run before.
