I own no aspect of Harry Potter
Now I lay me down to sleep;
Sounds burst into existence in the usually silent and still forest. Panting breaths and screams from tortured throats pierce the air. The sun barely finishing its descent from the sky and already it has begun.
The Hunt.
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
Those who seek refuge in the tall trees watch as those below them flee, pleading for their lives as they run. Only those who are about to die have ever truly glimpsed what chases them. At a glance they are shadows; thick, darker than night, and too fast for any mortal to outrun for long. Yet these things live for the chase, these monsters that arrive with the stars and disappear when the first ray of light shines over the horizon.
If I should die before I wake,
So the denizens of the forest run and hope they will survive this massacre, this nightly ritual. Mothers and fathers, children and brothers, all here to escape the fighting in the cities; never knowing it would have been safer huddling in their broken buildings than in the shadows of the forest. For who could ever know of the carnage that takes place here, if not one soul survives to tell the tale?
I pray the Lord my soul to take.
So they run. They pray, they plead, they scream, and they hope they live. Carrying their babes on their back and leaving the injured to their fate. There is no stopping, there is no survival. These shadows that come from the very depths of Hell, these mysterious things that take more pleasure in the chase than the kill. Terror lives in their hearts, and every good thought is sucked away.
This forest is Hell, and there is no hope.
Now I lay me down to sleep;
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.