Playing Games
Lightning sliced through the purple black sky in an eerie zig-zag line crashing so close to the soggy ground in the distance she was certain it had hit. Almost immediately following the electric knife came an ominous boom of thunder, sounding as if it crashed right above her head, so loud that the ground and surrounding trees shook with its voice. Her ears pounded in time with her heart as the rain slammed against her face, stinging from both the force and the icy cold of the wind and water.
She ran directly into the wind, and it felt like knives against the exposed skin of her face and hands. Her hair was matted against her neck and shoulders, so saturated with the liquid ice that the stinging wind she ran against and the force of her movement itself were not enough to trail it out behind her.
Lightning flashed again, spreading out across the angry sky this time, and, for a moment the forest was lit up with the force of it. The sky was an ominous, bruised purple, covered with a blanket of thick clouds that blotted out even the moon, round and heavy tonight and bright with ethereal, yellow light. The trees were dark and haunted, most bent and twisted in the merciless wind and rain that pelted them like bullets.
Thunder crashed above her again, echoing around the forest, the echoes keeping time with her pounding heart. As if on cue, an ancient oak, trunk thick and sturdy with age, cracked in time with the drum of the thunder as the pitiless wind snapped it in two like the twig beneath her shoe. The dead tree fell with sad creaking sound before smashing into the ground just to her left, a terrifying thud matching the thunder as the trunk made contact with the ground.
She didn't cry out as the splintered shrapnel of the once proud and majestic tree pierced the skin of her hand and thigh through her jeans, far too intent on getting oxygen to her screaming lungs. But her eyes widened with fear and certainty as crimson liquid leaked from the wounds, sliding through her fingers and running down her leg, her jeans too saturated with the frigid rain to absorb her blood.
As if sensing her weakness, the wind slammed against her even harder, pushing her back and trailing her now stronger scent behind her. It shrieked mockingly in her ringing ears, screaming to her pursuer She's here! She's here!
Her throat burned with her labored breathing, feeling like she'd swallowed a thousand tiny shards of glass as she sucked in lung-fulls of the frozen air, desperately forcing her protesting legs faster and strides further apart, knowing it was futile but trying anyway. But the ground was slick with mud and water; it had only been a matter of time…
Frantically she pushed herself up, hearing the pelt of the rain change as the drops hit living marble instead of the mud and grass beneath it, turning on her back just in time to see the lightning flash in those red, red eyes, cold and merciless just like the wind as it howled its victory above the growling of the thunder for all the forest to hear.
Weakly she pushed herself backward on her elbows and feet as the vampire moved with stealthy, unhurried steps, knowing she was caught and drinking in her fear. Her breath came in panicked gasps as she stared into those red eyes, unable to see anything else. They were the color of blood, fresh and drying and so, so red…
So close now, only several feet away. Terrified and unsure of what else to do, she threw back her head and screamed for the only person who ever really made her feel safe.
"Jacob!"
Somewhere outside of here and now, right and wrong, time and space, the tiny russet colored wolf clicked against the dark square of the board, taking his place beside the queen.
"Checkmate," replied a voice, smug with victory and sweet and rich like honey.
"Hn, play again?" A different voice, baritone and musical like the rumble of a tiger's purr.
Green eyes smiled.
Click.