The skeleton's eyes narrowed.
He must have her.
The girl was quite a distance away when she felt the ground shake. She threw her head over her shoulder as she ran to see a brilliant beam of orange and blue light up the night sky. Her eyes grew wide. She needed to find a place to hide, fast.
In the deep snow as she ran she could make out strange structures. She wasn't sure what they were supposed to be, but they were certainly wrecked and scattered all over the place. Like the ruins, there might have been a puzzle or two lying around, but between the heavy snowfall and the strong sense that the area was receding back into the wild, they were completely destroyed.
Eventually the girl happened upon a wooden bridge. She chanced a glance back and found racing shadows looming ever closer. The girl gulped, she was running out of time.
She sprinted across the bridge and almost fell off once or twice. Beyond the bridge was a cluster of wooden houses and she let out a cry of relief. Finally, a place to hide.
The houses looked worse for the wear, but the girl wasn't going to judge them too harshly; to her they were the holy grail. The girl picked one at random, and it looked like nobody was home. The girl was about to go through when she happened to spy light a little further into what she assumed was a village. She looked back to the bridge and thought she could make out lumps of white crossing. She needed to hide…but hiding would do her no good if the skeleton caught her anyways. If she found people, then he might just leave her alone. Safety in numbers and all that.
The girl shut the door and ran to the lights. She found a much nicer building than any of the others she had seen so far. A sign above it spelled out " Y' S". She could hear laughter and practically smell the crackle of a fire inside. Her eyebrows stitched together in slight confusion. After everything she had seen, she decided to stop questioning the logic behind a bar in an underground cave with its own weather system and climate.
She quickly opened the door and closed it behind her, glad to be out of the cold.
All noise in the bar abruptly stopped. There was light music playing still, but without the happy sounds of the bar's patrons there was a sort of eerie silence that blanketed the building. The girl looked up to find a variety of creatures staring back at her. A flaming man tending the bar, two birds sitting on a stool, a mean looking plant, and a table full of dogs with armor and scythes.
The girl took a couple of tentative steps forward and felt like she might faint.
This place was getting weirder and weirder by the moment.
Although, to be fair she must have looked quite strange herself. She was covered in a large fur cloak leaving her formless (she looked like a white fluffy blob) and the physical exertion from running had left her gasping for breath. It also didn't help that her body couldn't stop twitching from the high of adrenaline. She probably looked like a half dead rat.
Just then, a duo of cheery voices from outside sliced through the apprehension in the room. The door slammed open and two skeletons, one tall and the other short, stepped inside. They were saying something about glittering spaghetti, clearly oblivious to the tension around them.
When they finally became aware of the situation at hand, they grew silent.
The tall skeleton's mouth hung open, staring at the girl while the short one tensed.
"h-human?"
But the girl wasn't paying attention to them anymore. The bar seemed to shrink as she saw the Thing emerge with his pets. They were coming.
"Shut the door."
The words came out strangled, the girl couldn't find her voice.
Nobody was listening.
They had all drawn weapons and started to yell (at her?) It sounded like static. The only thing she could hear were the soft footfalls of the Thing, the only thing she could see was impending death.
"Shut the door." She said again, and it came out a bit stronger this time. The short skeleton seemed to jolt out of his stupor. He raised a brow, not quite understanding what the girl was getting at. He didn't know about the bogeyman creeping in the night, nor of his hounds whining for bloodlust.
"SHUT THE DOOR!"
The girl screamed and sprang into action. Her fur cloak came unclasped and fell to the floor as she ducked around the skeletons. The shorter one braced himself and he held up a fractured hand. One eye started to blaze blue and a familiar static filled the air. The girl growled in frustration. There was no time to explain that she wasn't a threat, that the real threat was outside just behind them. She stuck out her hand and grasped the short skeleton's. She could feel the splintering cracks of his bones (what the hell had happened to his hand!). Her body vibrated with the contact of blue energy. Everything began to tingle and jump. She stretched out her free hand just as a beautiful azure burst out, smacking the approaching Thing hard in the chest.
With a groan the girl slammed the door closed and stuck a nearby chair under the knob.
She was dumbly aware that she was still holding the short skeleton's hand. She dropped it and mumbled a sorry just as something hit the door with enough force to bump the chair away. The girl could hardly lift her fingers, she was so tired. The short skeleton whirled around, astonished to find that the girl wasn't trying to attack but had saved everyone instead. He barked orders to the other creatures and they all gathered around the door solemnly. The girl tried to join them but the only thing that had kept her going was the sweet, sweet drug of adrenaline. Unfortunately for her, her brain had run out and was barely functioning as it was. She sank to the floor and closed her eyes. Just a couple minutes of rest couldn't hurt. The worst that could happen would be death, and isn't death just permanent sleep?