Quote:Beat after beat, step after step, jump after jump and still the drum within him resounded deeper and deeper; the pain was building, his lungs began to refuse the air he breathed. His legs and arms were far beyond the point of simple burn and his vision was dull and blurred. Yet still he went onwards through the sharp thin branches stinging his naked skin, the thorns ripping through cloth and flesh with every move but he refused to stop running. He could hear his heart pounding in his ears, tha-thump tha-thump tha-thump. His body yearned to collapse, to fall, to release into the inviting gravity but he simply couldn't give into that fatal temptation.

There was nothing to do but run. For the dangers behind him were unfeeling and tireless. Should he fall, there would be nothing awaiting him but death; a slow and cruel death. Yet he knew deep within himself that his strength was failing, his heart was slowing and his vision darkening. He wouldn't be able to last very long in this treacherous wood. There was no help to be had and no goodness to find. No shelter in which to hide and no sustenance to be sought.

It was as a dark painting, full of color and mood but lacked the essence of life. There were no insects here, no animals and yet the plants lived on; such vile and spiteful plants that feed every bit on blood as they do the sun. What was left for him here but to lay down and perish in the coldness of the foggy night? That was when it happened, the one thing he dreaded had come to pass; his foot was snagged by an upraised root and his ruined body crashed onto the ground and rolled over every sharp twig and broken bark that it seemed to find.

There he lay; wondering when they would find him. Vaguely as his mind clouded from pain and weariness he hoped with rest of his might that he would not be found and not be eaten by this most carnivorous forest. His vision finally faded and the last thing he heard was the howling wind and deafening snap of a nearby twig.