Clowning around

 She was breathing heavily, the cold air rasping sharply against the back of her throat and rushing in her ears as she ran. Her heart was pumping faster than it had done in her entire life. Sheer terror was gripping her, blurring her vision, quickening her already furious footsteps. Her bare feet thudded repeatedly on the strewn forest floor, the silence in the air seeming to deaden the sound, having the effect of confusing her whether it was her pounding footsteps or her racing heart that was beating a thundering rhythm throughout her body

She threw another petrified look over her shoulder, not risking to stop running, resulting in tripping over a knarled tree root sticking innocently out of the ground. Falling on all fours, she scrambled to regain her footing, she dug her hands into the dry soil to try and push herself up. Her long white pyjama t-shirt and black pyjama bottoms were getting covered in dirt and dead leaves were stuck in the weaving of the material but she didn’t stop to brush them off, she kept running. She had only one aim. To get away from what was following her

The trees began to get denser, the world darker and the branches sharper with every step. The twigs snapped and grabbed at her like some sort of spiky spiders web, and she was but a fly. Her long black hair got tangled in the spindly twigs, making her unable to pull herself free without yelping in considerable pain. She batted frantically at the branches, only succeeding in getting scratched, but she was too scared to take notice of the stinging. Suddenly something hard and strong fell on her shoulder. It squeezed her painfully making her gasp, her terror seemed to reach such a peak she was unable to scream. She tried to pull free but the weight pushed harder, her knees began to buckle, slowly giving way to the immense pressure it was exerting. Suddenly the weight yanked her around, pulling her to face the other way, turning her to face,

…nothing…

The pressure left as suddenly as it had come. She stared, wide eyed, hardly daring to breathe. All she saw were more trees, and more dark, broken only by the moonlight shining ghost-like through the sparse canopy, making the cold October air shimmer, throwing dappled pools of blue-white light on the ground and bouncing off the wrinkled bark of the trees. The light, rather than comforting her, only made the dark look darker and denser, like some kind of impenetrable blanket.

She stayed motionless for what felt like an eternity. Nothing in the forest moved, not a twig, not a leaf, not a single sound. She slowly and carefully untangled herself and made her way into a clearer spot. Standing in a shaft of silvery moonlight, she watched her steadying breathes rise up in misty swirls in front of her, disappearing as they lifted weightlessly into the air and for the first time the sharp, bitterly cold breeze seemed to bite at her. She shivered and wrapped her arms around her torso, trying to keep the little body warmth she had. One thing was for sure, if she was going to find a way out, alive, she would have to keep moving or die.

She looked back at the way she came. It was like a dark pit gaping out at her, unable to see a thing beyond the first few tangles of branches; she didn’t want to go back there. She looked around and chose the clearest, most path-like route that was visible.

As she began to walk, arms still tightly around herself, her senses seemed to be on hyperactive overdrive. Every twig that snapped beneath her numb feet made her jump. She kept throwing furtive glances over her shoulder, was it still there? The darkness seemed to shift and move as though the blackness itself had a life of its own. But that seemed to be the only life in this forest. The silence scared her. Surely there should be an owl hooting, a fox cawing, but there was only silence

Dead silence