Preface: The Chase

The monsters were coming. They'd been outright chasing me since I'd entered the forest. Luckily, I knew the forest better than they did. I could hear them stumbling behind me, trying to run around the trees, while I raced ahead. Unfortunately for me, they had longer legs than I did and, apparently, better endurance. They would soon catch up with me. When that happened I knew all hope of survival would be lost. I quickened my pace until my legs felt like they were being burned with a branding iron.

My eyes- widened with fright- could have described the entire forest, down to the last pine needle and hint of sun through the leaves, despite the danger of the situation. My ears heard every noise, amplified ten-fold: the rustling of the leaves in the soft wind of the day, the cracking of the twigs as I trampled them beneath my feet, my heart doing an impression of a staccato beat inside my chest, the quick and steady footsteps of the hunting party behind me, getting closer with each passing moment…

My mind raced with questions: What were these monsters? I'd only caught a glimpse of them before I was forced to run. That glimpse had been all I'd needed to convince me that running was certainly the wisest course of action. Their faces and gait were distinctly canine, though they stood on two feet and still looked decidedly human. Their eyes, yellow and vicious, promised a gruesome death when they finally caught up with me.

Why were they here? What could such sinister creatures want in such a simple place?

Most importantly, what did they want with me? There were hundreds of people crowding the hallway in school, why did they go after me, specifically? Did it have something to do with the other day when I was struck by that strange red lightning? I couldn't help but feel like these two occurrences had to be connected. After all, nothing this strange had ever happened to me up until two days ago.

With a yelp, my feet inevitably found the tree root that would invariably spell out my certain death, and I fell face first into the tree connected to the root. My head gave a terrible cracking sound and pain spread across my forehead. When I tried to get up, the pain worsened, my sight became foggy, and I couldn't move from the dizziness.

I heard the footsteps slowing down directly behind me. I accepted my fate. Shaking violently, from both the fear and the sudden pain of moving, I turned to face the monsters.

They had faces full of satisfaction as one of them lifted a clawed hand towards my throat. Wincing, I turned my face to the side, instinctively, afraid of the pain but unable to escape it. I never took my eyes from the creatures, however.

Just then, an earthshaking boom sounded at my other side. The monsters paused, their eyes widening. I wanted to see what had them so startled, what caused the loud explosion, but I was too afraid to move my eyes from their figures. I was afraid that if I turned my head to investigate they would kill me while I wasn't looking. I somehow thought that if I kept looking at them there was no way they could kill me.

However, the creatures made no move to look back to me. They stood, silently looking over my left shoulder. Their eyes widened even further, almost as if they were afraid of whatever was happening behind me. What could be so fearsome that creatures like these would be afraid? I still did not try to break the silence, or to look away from the monsters.

Finally, something happened. The monsters threw one more evil glance my way, promising to kill me another day, then scattered.

Now, I was even more terrified, if that was possible. What could be behind me?

With a cringe, I acknowledged the sound of loud, thumping footsteps to my left and I turned my head slowly to see a large man with long blonde hair and blue eyes staring down at me.

Before I could study him further, all the fear I had felt in the last several minutes- and the head injury- caught up to me. I fainted, only to dream of the events leading up to this moment.