She ran. She ran faster than she thought her legs could carry her. She pumped her arms, each movement filled with a hot energy. Her chest felt tight— she couldn't even be sure she was still taking in breath. Every ounce of being that she had was applied toward moving forward. With every step, she feared that her legs would stop, her knees would buckle, and her fear would cease to hurtle her forward, but would fix her to one spot.
Even knowing the terrain as well as she did, she could not help the collisions with trees, or the sharp sting the branches traced across her skin when she ran too close to brush. In one horrifying moment, her foot tucked under a lifted root, and her frantic forward motion was halted. Before she could register what was happening, she landed hard on the ground, a gust of air escaping her. As she pushed herself up from the floor, in a moment that felt so painfully slow, she could hear her name being yelled. The voice was raspy, deep, and close.
Though she had been trying to continually move in the same direction, she realized that the terrain was becoming less familiar to her. The thought had just crossed the back of her mind when the air drastically cooled. She could see ahead in the dark just enough to realize that the ground ended only a number of feet away. Going against her desperate survival instinct, she stopped. She threw her hands out to grip a tree nearby, as the momentum still threw her body forward, even when her legs stopped.
Breathing so hard she knew there was no way to stay quiet, she let go of the branch and took a few shaky steps to look over the cliff. It was a terrifying drop, and she could see nothing below but darkness. She could hope that there was water, but if there was any, she had no idea how deep it might be. If it was water, she could swim— if it was land, she could run— but she could do neither if her body were to suddenly meet any hard resistance.
Hearing her name shouted again made her jump, and she looked frantically to the right and the left. She could follow the cliff's edge in either direction, but it offered her no protection. She would be moving fast again, and with no light; it would be too easy for her to mistake her footing, and suddenly meet air instead of rock. The cliff edge was a risk, but she did not have the time to weigh her options. She had to move.
She turned back to the trees and took a quick step when she focused on the pair of eyes trained on her. They were set at least two feet higher than her own, spaced about a foot apart from each other. If it weren't for the familiarity with these eyes that she so resented, she wouldn't have noticed the watery glint that gave them away. She thought she would feel fear or rage when she was caught in that gaze again, that she would be driven to some action, but she was frozen.
She strained to push herself back into action, however futile that may be. Through a darkness that seemed so thick, she could sense, rather than see, that he was reaching for her. The terror that gripped her then was all she needed to act. With the same foot that she had stepped forward on only a second ago, she pushed herself backwards with as much force as she could. Going backwards, she didn't know she had made it over the edge of the rocks until she heard him yell out in rage. He hated to lose, and they both realized he had lost her. Falling through the cold air, she knew this escape was the best option she had, regardless of what lay beneath her.