Sophia kicked at the dirt, trying to squirm forward. She looked everywhere but at the monster now pursuing her, looking for something, anything, that she could use to fight back. She clawed at Trevor's lighter, snatching it up along with around of earth, and tried to get up. Her legs shook with fear, making every attempt more difficult. She managed to rise to her feet and begin to blindly run anywhere that was not where she currently was. Her body and mind were exhausted, and the Slender Man was going to make things harder.

"RUN"

The message was screamed into her consciousness, making her head feel like it was about to burst. She winced, but kept running.

"RUN"

"RUN SO I CAN CHASE YOU"

"Please God…" Sophia whimpered under her breath, so quietly that even she could barely hear it.

"NO GODS"

"NO PRAYERS"

"NO HOPE"

Then, Slender Man began a mental attack. Instead of forcing his sadistic messages into her mind, there were images. Images of death. Images of corpses. The lifeless stare of Cassidy. The eviscerated cadaver of Alex. The bloody remains of the brainwashed children, including the mangled corpse of Victor. All losers in his game, a game he loved to play.

Sophia's legs gave out from under her, and she collapsed into the dirt. She wanted to cry again, but she was out of tears to shed. She turned feebly and saw the approaching black mass out of the corner of her eye. However, nearby, she saw something else: Trevor's discarded backpack. The propane canisters were spilled out, and even from a distance, she could hear the hissing. Gas was escaping from the canisters that had been damaged, either by the impact or the byproduct of the monsters' fight. Sophia winced again, an idea entering her head. It likely would not work or would hurt her as well, but a minuscule chance was better than none. She channeled all her strength to rise, flick Trevor's lighter a few times until a flame ignited, then turned to face Slender Man. Her eyes stung and her head buzzed with the sound of static as she screamed in defiance and threw the lighter at the tanks. The flame remained as it dropped on top of the canisters.

The static buzzing was gone. The blackness was gone. They had been replaced by a thunderous boom and a bright light. Sophia felt herself in the air. She could not remember the seconds leading to her being there, but had a pretty good guess what had happened. The heat burned her skin, she could feel it peeling and bubbling. Suddenly she felt her back it the ground. She closed her burning eyes as she struck, rolling over rocks and thorns. She skidded across the dirt, and it felt like her hoodie, the shirt, and the skin underneath all tore. All sounds were replaced with ringing. Even her breathing and heartbeat were drowned out. She finally rolled to a stop, blood pouring from open wounds on her face, arms, knees, and back. She rolled onto her side, facing the fire.

The fire caught quickly. The tree that the backpack had been next to had almost immediately ignited. Every piece of foliage that was within the explosion's radius caught fire, burning rapidly, the dry leaves and sticks only fueling the blaze.

Slender Man, who had staggered back from the blast, found himself almost immediately surrounded by inferno. He hissed in anger and began to beat at the flames with his tendrils. Parts of his flesh caught fire. He swiped at the trees with his claws, trying to knock them down, but only added more kindling. A tendril that was attempting to suffocate the flames ignited. His base, a mass of tendrils and blackness where his feet used to be, erupted into the blaze. Slender Man screeched in anger and pain as any regenerating he attempted to do was halted or override by the flames burning more and more flesh away. Slender Man craned his neck and hissed static again as the flames rose ever higher up the trees, engulfing his entire form, his blackness seemingly vanishing in the roaring light.

Sophia lay still as, for what felt like the first time in an eternity, the sound of static faded from her mind. Her headache persisted, but she had no doubt she had a concussion. She did not want to move. She did not even want to blink. It took every ounce of her resolve to continue to breathe. The ringing, though still loud, had softened just enough for Sophia to hear the bellowing and crackling of the fire. It was spreading, and it was growing closer. Sophia did not think she could outrun it. Still, she figured it was better to die in a forest fire than at the hands of some monster who treated the deaths of her friends as a game. At least, if she was going to die, she would go knowing she had won. She closed her eyes and felt the heat grow closer.

"You will live, Sophia."

Sophia opened her eyes. No. She had worked too hard to survive. She wanted to live. If she did not want to live, then what was the point of all of this? She had to escape. She had to live.

Sophia took a deep breath which made her chest ache. She pushed herself to roll over onto her stomach, then move her arms and try to push herself up. She yelped and collapsed, glancing over at her left arm. It was bent in a way that a human arm should not be bent. Biting her lip and pressing through the pain, she hoisted herself up with only her right arm, just until she could kick her feet underneath her and shakily rise. She gritted her teeth and winced when she tried to stand. Her right ankle was clearly sprained. She did her best to raise it and put as little pressure on it as possible. She took a moment to catch her breath and let the pain in her body subside, looking out at the fire as she did so.

Suddenly, she heard a noise. This time it was not in her mind, but in her ears, in the actual air. But it was all too familiar. Her eyes widened as the black mass of Slender Man clawed out from the flames, his tongue-like tendril swaying menacingly in his mouth of sharp teeth. Black oozed from open wound across his body, and burns lined his hands and head. Some parts of him, including many of his tendrils, were still ablaze. He screeched and rose up, clawing his hands and preparing to lunge, ready to finish Sophia once and for all.

All of a sudden, another figure burst from the fire. Siren Head, its chest and abdomen torn open and drooping wire-like entrails, and with one of its coral mouth-sirens still missing rushed forward, wailing like a mix of all sirens it had previously imitated. It jumped at Slender Man, wrapping its arms around him and digging one hand of claws into his flaming body. It rose its other hand and stabbed Slender Man in the side of the head with its digits, spurting black blood. Slender Man shrieked static as he immediately turned to face the foe he had thought dead. He reached his claws forward, grabbing at Siren Head's torn chest, and forced open the mummified ribcage, causing more wire-like innards to burst out Siren Head bellowed and grabbed Slender Man's head in both of its hands, then dove backwards back into the fire, dragging a writhing Slender Man along with it. The flames once again engulfed the two creatures, an occasional tendril rising from the inferno as both the sounds of static and sirens faded under the sound of the blaze.

Sophia had no time to process what had happened. She had to be moving. She turned around and, as quickly as she could manage, began limping forward, minding her injuries. The fire grew closer, but she pushed forward, grunting and wheezing with every step, but refusing to stop moving. She could hear cracking and see branches falling out of the corner of her eye, but did not look back even once. She simply pushed forward.

The smoke was beginning to become an issue, clouding her vision and filling her lungs. She could not hold her breath long, constantly having to inhale to try and sate her exhaustion. She squinted, hoping to see better through her blurred vision and thickening smoke. As she did, she saw a clearing ahead. Grunting loudly, she tried limping faster, moving away from the heat. It felt like it took forever, but she finally made it into the clearing. She pivoted her head up to see a dark sky with traces of pale moonlight instead of the expansive canopies of trees. Despite this, she never stopping going forward.

The fire slowed when it reached the clearing. There were few trees to spread to. Embers and flames drifted and fell to the underbrush, which ignited, but spread at a much slower rate. Sophia kept her eyes locked ahead of her, and did not stop moving.

Sophia kept her goal of moving forward solely in her mind. She did not care which direction she was headed, what was ahead, or what was around her, only to limp forward and not stop, She kept her mind fixed on this one goal for so long that she did not even notice the heat and sound had lessened. When she did realize this, she kept going for a bit longer before sorely turning her head and glancing behind her for the first time since she started.

The blaze had grown into a full forest fire. She could see the smoke blocking out the sky and the orange glow. She was on some kind of hill, and could see the reach of the inferno from her vantage point. She sighed and turned her head back forward. On the horizon, she could see a difference in color. The black was fading into a deep purple. Wearily, Sophia inhaled and began stepping forward again.

She walked for hours. Every step, she felt like it would be her last before her body would be able to take no more. However, she kept going on, Her burns stinging, her wounds bleeding, and her injured arm and ankle throbbing. Her lips were chapped and her mouth was dry from thirst. Her stomach gurgled, but she could not tell if it was nausea or hunger. Somewhere along the line, she had wet herself, but had been too fatigued to do anything about it. She had to continually keep her mind clear of the horrific events that had lead up to this. She tried to keep the images and memories of dead friends and children out of her head. Any additional weight, even emotional, would slow her down.

The sky grew brighter as rays of dark red craned over the distant horizon. The black began to warp into a navy blue, and the horizon grew lighter and lighter. It got to the point where Sophia had to avert her eyes down to the brown and green ground, as the tiniest sliver of the sun arched over. Sophia tried not to look at it in fear of damaging her eyes even more, but a part of her wanted to see some light, some hope, no matter how painful or distant it was.

Despite everything in her mind telling her to keep going, the human body had limits to how much it could take. Her uncles felt like they were about to peel off, and her lungs and heart felt ready to burst. She strained to take another step forward, but finally succumbed. She collapsed to her knees, wincing in pain as the injuries dragged into the dirt. She panted, every breath simultaneously feeling like it was nourishing and suffocating her. She extends the one part of her body that did not ache, her dried tongue, and moved it across her mouth in a feeble attempt to moisturize her cracked lips. Despite her better judgement, she raised her head up. The sun was rising. Her eyes hurt looking at it, but it was the only pain she appreciated, because it meant she had made it.

This is what she thought until she heard a crack, like the splintering of a branch, behind her. Her already overworked heart pounded as she began to turn her head, her spine popping and cracking as she did so. There was a faint droning, but she could not tell if it was the sound of static or a siren. Finally, she was able to look behind her, her eyes glancing upward.

Sophia gasped.

THE END