Every Second Counts
The smoke-gray shadowlike figure snaked through the trees. Ducking and weaving in and out, you could see it as it raced along the ground.
The mist seemed to dance around it, barely touching the shadow as it rushed by.
Slowly, as drops of sunlight leaked through the canopy, a young chocolate-brown mare took her form.
Her coat was stained with chestnut highlights under the blanket of lathered sweat that soaked it through. Her eyes rolled white like the clouds. Blood pounded through her veins as heartbeats matched hoof beats and her paper white face poured sweat like a waterfall.
She floated above the ground in spectacular moments of suspension. Her legs lifted and tucked as gracefully as any true show-jumper as she leaped over a tree that had fallen in one of yesteryear's raging storms.
She splashed through a trickling creek and let the cool water soothe her for mere seconds before she was out and up on the ridge on the other side.
Finally, the ghost-like creature reached the end of the trees. Pounding out a rhythm in the ground, she pushed herself further, driven by pure fear and adrenaline. The dreaded sound rose up on the howling wind behind her. She tried desperately to reach the safety of the woods across the way, but it was too late.
She couldn't win.
She turned to fight.