I open the door to the wind, and it rushes to wrap me in an embrace of ice. The brown leaves rise as one, rattling and chattering like a flock of birds swooping to surround me in feathers, like the sound of my teeth on a February morning.
The moon has veiled her face tonight. She cannot bear to look upon me, she whom moonlight has both blessed and cursed. The leaves are warning me. Run, they whisper. Run fast, run far. Don't look back.
They know. They can feel him coming for me.
But I never was one for running from anything.
The evergreen trees shake in agitation, sensing my decision. I can feel the whisper of their consternation, the wish of the rose bushes to persuade me to leave them. But I have seen the dark shadow bounding behind me, flickering in the corner of my eye, and I know that some things you cannot change. What the earthbound trees wish to believe - that you can run from what you fear, leave behind what you wish to change - I know to be untrue. Your troubles will only be waiting for you when you stop to breathe.
I will not run. I will wait, and I will greet him with the icy snarl of the thousand winds at my back. I scream my intent to the heavens, one wordless, howling cry that cracks the cloud canopy.
It says: Come for me. You will not take me.