Author's note: OKAY I ACTUALLY HAD THIS DREAM AND IT WAS FREAKING TERRIFYING. I COULD FEEL EVERYTHING, HEAR THE HOWLING, TASTE THE SWEAT, EVEN FRICKING SMELL THE DIRT. DON'T EVEN TALK TO ME ABOUT HOW HORRIBLE THIS WAS. Anyway. Carry on.
My vision is blurred, flickering, wavering, half-blinded by mindless fear of something that I cannot see. A distant sound echoes through the dreary gray-green trees, and my heart pounds unevenly in my ribcage as I recognize it. The snarls, the growling, rough barks; they're hellhounds, fast on my tail. As I whip my head around to look, I see only tears in the black dirt where their claws slash across it, and I run even faster, my lungs heaving painfully. The trees come out of nowhere, and the sparse branches seem to move down so that they slap me in the face, drawing long, bloody scratches across my skin. The cool air rushing past my face and through my hair is just too real, the painful blisters growing inside my boots is too sharp, and the smell of musk and blood and wet soil is all too accurate within my nostrils. I can feel the breath of the hounds caressing my calves through my thinning jeans, and I try to run faster, but my muscles are just too strained. I fall as one of the hellhounds' claws snares the leg of my pants and pull me to the ground. I grapple at the trunk of a tree, trying to pull myself up, only their grip on my ankles is too strong and I only flip over onto my back. I feel the searing white agony of teeth sinking into my chest, the weight of unseen paws pressing down on my stomach, and then I wake up.