Easier To Run

• Jennifer Bullers, Grade 11
• Short Story
• 2010

I pushed bushes and branches from my path as I ran through the forest, their sharp, clawed fingers snapped back, scratching my arms. The sleeves on my shirt had long since been turned to shreds, and the yellow colour it had once been had merged into a murky brown. My dark-blonde hair had been pulled back into a tight pony-tail yet had still managed to pick up a variety of twigs and leaves in amongst the progressing knots.
My foot caught on a tree root, resulting in me flying to the forest floor, again. I had lost count of the amount of times I had ended up tumbling onto my hands and knees. My combat trousers had been torn; my knees were seeping out blood, a dark congealed mass. My hands were so badly cut and scratched that the old pinkish colour they had once held was instead replaced by a vicious, bright red.
I sighed, pressing on, letting the trees persist in their mutilation of my arms. I knew the searing stinging in my arms from cuts and aching in my legs from exertion was nothing in comparison with what I could be facing.
Their hatred and lust for my death had been imprinted in my mind. I could not let them find me. It was for my life that I was running; it was for my life that I had to get as far away from them as possible.
Feet pounding in a continuous, repetitive pattern I fought my way further into the labyrinth of trees. Weaving through the gigantic, towering trunks around me proved to be more challenging the deeper into the forest I ran.
Being sixteen, I did not have much on three tall, strong nineteen year olds.
The vivid red of a t-shirt flashed in the corner of my eye as I glanced back to see one of them gaining on me. Panic and fear rose even higher within me as I forced myself faster still. Knives seared down my throat as I struggled to draw breath to ease the screaming agony of oxygen deprivation from my lungs.
My luck was running out.
I stumbled again; the muscles in my legs contorted from the torturous half-hour sprint.
The falter in my fleeing efforts cost me everything.
As I tried to gain momentum and speed once again a large, strong hand clamped down on my shoulder. I yelped and tried to pull free. The dark looming figure spun me around.
I had no fight left; all energy had drained from my body.
Laughter filled my ears, his mates were egging him, but entwined too was a solitary voice.
"The cowards laugh at death?"
Nothing malicious rang through the words; the voice was calm, peaceful.
I heard a grunt and the crunch of leaves as a body crumpled to the floor.
"Strange, you spread fear, but never comprehend you in fact have more to fear yourselves."
Relief washed through me as Lee’s face swam into view.