Panting.
Running.
His panting sounded loud, while the ground rushed under his feet. He had to hurry. He had to get away from there. His heart thundered in his ears and the trees tried to grab him.
Running. Running.
Falling.
Sirius gave a hoarse scream as he hit the ground, hard. He clutched his scraped knee and decided it was nothing. Just some blood. Nothing worse than Lily…
Lily.
Green eyes, green flashes.
Lily. Lovely Lily.
He scrambled to his feet and started running again. He felt like he couldn't breathe. Everything hurt and his heart was a black hole, sucking his feelings and himself down into nothing, into numbness. It hurt. Everything was black, everything was pain. Throbbing, screaming pain. Pain had Lily's name now. Pain and love and coldness, it all had Lily's name.
He felt sick, had to stop running. The Forbidden Forest was silent, and yet it wasn't. He could feel it. It was like vibrating energy surrounded him. It was watching him, feeding on his desperation. Where were the birds? The wind? The rustling of trees? All there was, was the electricity in the air.
He had to start running again. It was going to grab him, eat him, kill him. No, killing him would be too easy. It would torment him, eat him, puke him out again, eat him again. Over and over again, until there would be nothing left of him but a name. A name, as dark and silent as the night. As black as his heart. Black. With a name like his, he deserved this.
Run!
His groan came from somewhere deep in his body, ended in a sob. If only, if only… Where were they when he needed them? He needed them always. Where were they always? Pranking. They were always away pranking. He loved them, he needed them. His heart was going to explode. If it exploded, would he die? Soft, soft death. Warm, soft… lonely… Death was lonely, he was lonely, everything was lonely. Loneliness was green.
Green eyes, green flashes.
Lily's golden voice sounded like a whisper through the forest, through his head. No more, Sirius begged, no more. How could this have happened so fast? So sudden?
Sirius had looked in the mirror, and not only seen himself, but the other one as well. Pale face, dark hair, eyes like shadows. But he was nowhere to be seen when he turned around. And yet he was staring at him through his mirror. Sirius had closed his eyes and opened them again. Shadowman was gone.
Was the panting his alone? It seemed to have some sort of echo. His panting, and the beast's. He was not alone, never alone. It was like bloody schizophrenia, like an ever continuing nightmare. It followed him, grew stronger every time he saw it. Shadowman had appeared in his dreams first. Screaming weird things in a weird language, with a voice so high and shrill that it had hurt his ears. He'd woken up with a bolt, screaming his lungs out every time Shadowman haunted him in his dreams.
It was right behind him, faster than the wind, faster than the speed of light even. And it was so strong, so bloody strong. You felt like dying if it looked at you. You felt like killing yourself if it whispered your name. And even if you ran away from it, you could never leave it behind, because it was a part of you. Or was it?
Suddenly it had been everywhere he looked. In his dreams, in all the mirrors, in dark corridors and in the eyes of the girls that looked hungrily at them. He'd seen Shadowman in the teacher's eyes, in his friends' eyes, in his own eyes. He'd seen him in Hogsmead last weekend. He'd heard him screaming through the mouth of the blonde girl he'd been snogging in a broom closet as he'd softly cupped her breast. She'd screamed at him in the distorted shrieking voice of Shadowman, using the same unknown words from a land deep inside the earth.
He wanted to scream for help, but no one could hear him but the monster. If he used his voice, the beast would hear him and come to tear him in very little shards. Shadowman was no man. Shadowman was a shadow, the darkness, the monster under your bed when you were a kid.
In the distance sounded a scream, barely human anymore. It broke off at the end with a wet sound. Sirius sobbed in his hands, realizing that that would be the last thing anyone would ever hear from Peter Pettigrew. The world was such a twisted place. You did all you could to protect the ones you loved, and in the end they'd die anyway.
He forced himself to run again. Shadowman probably wasn't occupied for very long. Peter was a short kill, where was the fun in ripping someone's head of?
DON'T THINK ABOUT IT!
Merlin, he was going to die. He was going to die and it was going to hurt so much and he was going to be so lonely and so sad and so cold. Forever and ever so bloody cold. Cold and alone and in pain and… and…
Merlin, he had to stop thinking like that. Thinking he was about to die was worse than running from the monster that was about to kill him. Maybe it would go quickly. It had killed Peter quickly as well, so why not him? It had killed Peter… oh Merlin, it had killed Peter. They were all dead, and it was his entire fault.
It was his fault, his baby brother had told him. He'd always hated him, but he didn't seem to be able to hate him while he was dead. Hanging in some deserted hallway on the third floor, his brother had lifted his hand and opened his eyes. His eyes had been as accusing as the finger he'd pointed at Sirius.
A twig snapped behind his back with the dry sound of James' breaking arm.
Sirius turned around as fast as he could, covering his ears to stop hearing all the thoughts and memories inside his head. Burning, hungry eyes were staring at him. His breath hitched and his heart missed a few beats. Then, he ran again. As fast as he could away from the thing. It's laughter hovered after him. The sound so monstrous that his blood ran cold and stopped running through his veins.
Merlin, help me.
All those people who had died already. He'd tried to stop it, he really had. He'd tried to stop Shadowman, but found himself incapable of doing so. Shadowman was so strong.
All those people, who had suddenly started jumping of the astronomy tower. That bunch of first years, who'd taunted the Whomping Willow. Poor Remus, of whom nothing was left but a heap of fur. Had he been scared? In pain and lonely? Would he blame Sirius as well?
Something grabbed his ankles and he fell again. He was begging out loud now, asking everything he could think of to save him. He couldn't run anymore, was too exhausted. He rolled on his back and looked at the shadow that was hovering over him. Shadowman grinned at him and Sirius screamed and screamed.
White pain pierced through him. White pain and black hatred. And green. So much green.
Green eyes, green flashes. Lily.
He'd tried. He and James had really tried to save everyone and Lily especially. They'd ran so hard, but Shadowman was faster. Lily had screamed for them to keep on running. Then, she'd seen his face and screamed for them not to leave her behind. Her green eyes had been filled with desperate tears when the green flashes of the spell of death had hit her. She'd fallen in slow motion and James' scream had been the most terrible sound Sirius had ever heard. It was the sound that had kept on ringing in his ears ever since.
Then, it had grabbed James, slammed him into a wall and broken his arm. James had tried to fight him off, to get to Lily. After that, there was nothing but James' subduing screams of pain and horror and Shadowman killing Sirius' best friend, right in front of his eyes. Sirius had left him behind and ran for the woods.
And now, he lay here, crying like a baby, begging for the monster both to kill him and to spare him. It laughed that horrible laugh again, and lifted Sirius by his collar. It looked him in the eye and Sirius felt more afraid than he had ever been in his life.
Their soft voices sounded in his head, soothing him. Warm and comforting, they called for him, told him it would be okay, not to be scared. They were with him, he was save now.
Shadowman's teeth closed around his neck and ripped it open. Warm blood flooded down his body and he could see his friends' faces in the darkness that surrounded him.
"I'm so sorry," he whispered. Then, all was silent and peaceful in his mind.