I was exhausted, but Elliot running back towards the hotel had lit fire underneath me and I started chasing after him. Somehow I knew that if I didn't stop him before he entered the building, he would never be able to leave again. It seemed that the place was more than just haunted, I had an uncomfortable feeling that it was a living, intelligent thing. I was pretty sure that the way we had gotten out would be blocked somehow if we tried again, as if the architectural creature had learned from its mistake.

"Elliot!" I screamed with everything I had. The rain was loud, but my voice was louder. Still, Elliot didn't stop. He was determined to go on with his suicide mission. Knowing that I was using the last bit of strength I had left, I accelerated my pace. If I didn't catch him in the next few seconds, my body would slow down on its own and he would be lost forever.

My hand flew forward as far as it could, but I had to run several more steps before I could feel the fabric of his shirt with my fingertips. My fist closed on it firmly and I pulled on it hard in order to slow him down, using all my strength to get an immediate effect. A few steps before the front door we came to a full stop and he turned to look at me with an angry face.

"What the hell are you doing?!" I yelled at him before he could say anything.

"I have to go back inside and make sure that Eli isn't there!" he yelled over the sound of the rain.

"It doesn't make any sense that he would be in there, Elliot!" I was soaking wet and I wanted to get out of there so badly that I was willing to knock him out and drag him away if necessary. The thought of a safe, warm bed in the nearby town was extremely tempting.

"You heard him!" he insisted.

"Even if it was possible that he could be here, you already saw that he was dead! How can he be calling your name now?!"

Elliot stared at me, lost for words. His paternal instinct made him think irrationally and he knew it.

"Liv, I have to check…"

"You know you won't be able to get out if you go in there again!" I felt both sorry for and angry at him at the same time. The need to slap him back into reality and then give him a comforting hug made my fingers tingle.

"I'll be fine," he sounded so unsure that it was almost funny. Almost. That is, if he wasn't voluntarily going to his death.

"Okay, then I'm coming with you," it was an obvious bluff but I hoped he wouldn't call it. All I needed was for him to have the tiniest doubt. If he thought there was a chance I would let him go inside and accompany him, he wouldn't do it. At least that was my hope, that he wouldn't let me end my life here with him.

"You can't, Liv."

"Watch me, partner," I challenged him, starting to walk toward the front door.

"Wait!" he grabbed my arm and pulled me back to him with a terrified look. The thought of me going in there was as frightening to him as the thought of him doing the same was to me.

I stumbled and fell into his arms, the side of my face smashing against his hard chest.

"Ouch," I mumbled, hiding the fact that I was happy over my victory.

"I'm sorry. Are you okay?" He pushed me back gently to an upright standing position, so he could look at me and make sure I wasn't injured.

"Yes. Can we go now?" I said angrily. Truth was, I wasn't more than a little irritated and a lot worried, but I acted angry for one last push, to help him make up his mind and not go into the building again.

The moment the words left my mouth, the front door opened on its own in a creaking sound, as if straight out of a horror movie. If it wasn't so scary, it would be ridiculous. We both startled and turned to look at it to see that it was ajar. The pitch black darkness inside made it impossible to see anything.

After a moment of staring at it in frozen fear, the door continued to open slowly, revealing more blackness. As it was halfway opened, I started hearing murmurs coming out of the entrance hall, where the front office was. It was similar to what I had heard upstairs the previous day, when all the doors to the guest rooms had opened all around us.

"Come to me…" something whispered from behind the door right before we saw four scrawny fingers creeping around the edge and grabbing it.

I looked at Elliot and he had a strange look on his face. His expression seemed vacant, as if he was hypnotized.

"Let's get out of here," I said, but he didn't acknowledge me. I tugged on his sleeve, trying to get him to pay attention to me, but he didn't move. "Elliot!" I yelled to no avail. "ELLIOT!" I tried again, this time straight in his ear, but nothing.

The door opened further and I looked to see the outline of the hooded figure, which had killed the both of us in my nightmare.

"Elliot, please!" I grabbed his face instinctively as I started crying, knowing that if that thing got us, it would be the end. I didn't want to die in that place but I could never leave him to save myself.

"Time to die…" the thing whispered again.

"Elliot…" I brought my cheek to his cheek, sobbing. "Please… I need you…" my lips said against his skin.

Suddenly, I was grabbed firmly from both arms. For a second, I thought that it was the creature who was about to drag me back inside, but then, to my infinite relief, I realized that it was Elliot, who had managed to wake up from his trance somehow.

He looked up and pointed without saying a word. I followed the direction of his finger and saw that in every single window now on both stories stood a shadowy figure. Some didn't move, much like statues, others banged silently on the glass, as if asking us to free them. I feared that Elliot might think that one of them was Eli. At that moment, the door opened the remaining way and hit the wall behind it with a bang.

"Liv, let's go!" Elliot quickly took my hand in his and we started running toward the main road.

More and more squares of light quickly appeared on the ground in the distance as lights were turned on in the upstairs guest rooms. It wasn't possible, of course, since the place had been abandoned for years and did not have electricity, but nothing there made sense so I didn't bother trying to figure it out. All I wanted was to break free from it.

To my surprise, the squares started disappearing one by one the further we ran, as if whatever was in there was admitting defeat and turning off the light.

We were a few steps away from the road when I somehow lost my balance and fell. My wet hand just slipped out of Elliot's wet hand for no reason. Strangely, as I was falling, all the remaining lights disappeared at once. The moment I was fully on the ground, something grabbed both my ankles and started dragging me back toward the building.

"Elliot!" The ground was full of gravel and I felt each and every one of the stones scratching and cutting my belly and my sides as I passed over them, wriggling and squirming in an attempt to free myself. At the same time, I struggled to look back, to see who or what was taking me, but I couldn't see anything.

"Olivia!" Elliot started running, chasing me and my invisible kidnapper. Luckily for me, he was faster and was able to grab my hands and pull me away from whatever was dragging me. For a moment, I was hanging a few inches in the air as I was being pulled from both sides, and then my feet were released and they fell painfully to the ground.

Elliot brought me back to my feet quickly and immediately started running again, holding my hand so tightly that it was somewhat painful. He didn't even check if I was able to run before he started moving, because it was our only chance.

The entire time we were running, he didn't release his hold on me even a little, determined to make sure I wasn't even half a step behind him.

I watched the asphalt of the main road coming nearer to us as if in slow motion, waiting for something else to happen before we managed to reach it, that would prevent us from leaving the place.

When our shoes finally hit the asphalt, it was as surreal as moving between dimensions. The second we left the parking lot, the rain stopped as if it had never come down to begin with. I stared in the direction of the hotel in shock, trying to understand what was happening. The rain hadn't stopped from the moment we stepped into that parking lot, but the second we left it, it was like nothing ever happened. The place seemed as quiet and as abandoned as it had been when we first saw it.

I bent down and touched the ground to check if it was wet. It wasn't. It was as though the rain was confined only to the hotel grounds and had magically stopped as soon as we left it. It was insane.

We were both still soaking wet, however, when we looked at each other incredulously.

Elliot's expression gradually softened as he looked at me. Suddenly, he took a step toward me and held my face with one hand as the other moved the wet hair from my face gently, looking into my eyes all the while. It was incredibly intimate for me. His touch had immediately triggered a safe feeling and mental images of what being in his arms would be like, of what kissing him would feel like. The thought of it sent wave after wave of chills washing over me. He had never touched me like that so it was completely new to me, but it also felt natural after everything we had been through in that place together. I felt closer to him, bonded by a terrible experience, and I wondered if he also felt like we had become closer in the last two days than we ever were before. I didn't dare ask him, though.

When he was done with my hair, he moved his hands down to my shoulders and slid them further down to my upper arms. I stared at him, mesmerized, until he silently pulled me in for a long embrace. It was one of comfort, but was also celebratory. We were out and we were alive. We survived.

We stood glued together for a while. I was so tired and it felt so good to be in his arms, to have my face buried in his shoulder after everything we had been through, that I wished we could stay like that forever.

"Where do we go from here? Back to the car or into town?" he asked quietly as he stroked my hair. It was so weird and beautiful to hear only him, without the sound of the downpour.

"We don't know what happened to the car," I pulled away from him reluctantly so I could look at him as we tried to make a decision. "So we should go to Dorbridge, find the local police and call for backup," my voice was weak but I was thinking clearly.

Elliot nodded. "I gotta call Eli. I don't know if our phones still work after everything that's happened, but I really need to find somewhere to charge it so I can make sure he's okay."

"Let's go, it's not far from here if I remember the sign correctly," I waited to see if he had anything else to say before we started walking, but he just reached out his hand and waited for me to take it. We had gotten out, but he wasn't taking any chances. He wanted to make sure I wouldn't disappear from his side.

As we walked hand in hand quietly, I thought I could get used to it. We had a lot we needed to talk about, but I loved our silences too. They were comfortable and comforting.

It was still dark outside but the outlines of the trees on both sides of the road were easily recognizable against the sky. Their leaves and branches swayed gently in the light wind. If I wasn't wet, it could've been nice to walk in that weather, but I was shaking from the cold.

"You okay?" Elliot's voice sounded hoarse to my right. He was clearly exhausted too.

"Yeah. Just a little cold. And tired," I could think of several more things that weren't okay, but I didn't want to burden him.

He looked at me as he walked, his body grazing my right side, and the physical closeness made it feel intimate again, as if we were on a date. After a few moments, I realized that he wasn't going to look away so I looked at him to see if he wanted to say anything, but he just smiled at me.

"What?" I asked, thankful for the darkness that camouflaged my blush.

"Nothing," he shrugged and looked away. "I'm just still trying to digest that we made it out alive."

At his words, I stopped in my tracks at once. Elliot was forced to stop too, as he was still holding my hand.

"What if we didn't? What if we're dreaming again?" I said, terrified at the thought that all of this might not be real.

Elliot let go of my hand and stared at me for a moment. "Pinch me," he said seriously.

"What?" I stared back at him in confusion.

"Pinch me and I'll tell you if it's a dream or not."

He kept a serious expression, but I knew he was joking. At first I wasn't feeling it, but the more I looked at his straight face, the more I felt it rising in me like lava in a volcano, until I couldn't hold it down anymore and I bursted into laughter.

Elliot smiled and gradually started laughing too. It was one of those contagious moments, when one made the other laugh without being able to stop. We needed to break the tension we were feeling, and that was our way to do it.

"We have… to keep…. going," I struggled to talk as I wiped my tears and tried to calm down.

"Come on," Elliot laughed, placing his arm around my shoulder.

Resuming our walk helped us wind down. Elliot didn't take his arm off of me even when silence fell between us again and I was grateful for that.

I didn't hug him back, but I kept wondering if I should. Would it send the wrong message if I did? Would it if I didn't?

"Are you getting warmer?" He rubbed my upper arm to warm me. I was glad that he had asked that, because it exempted me from doing anything. He hugged me for warmth, so I didn't have to make a decision about it.

"It's a little better," I mumbled quietly, hoping he wouldn't let go of me. Aside from the fact that he made me feel safe, I just really liked his touch, having him close to me, and I didn't want that to stop.

To my disappointment, he did just that. I became immediately cold again once I didn't feel his body close to mine, but then he took my hand in his and my disappointment abated. It was a nice consolation prize, to know that he refused to let go of me.

We were both too tired to talk, so we kept quiet. I loved having him by my side so much, even though he had a lot of redeeming to do. If it was a normal day, it would've been a great time to talk about things, but it wasn't. We had been through so much in the last two days, that in the aftermath we just collapsed into ourselves.

As we continued advancing toward Dorbridge, the wind gradually became stronger. I was so cold at one point that I had to walk closer to him to feel a little warmth. The shadows of the trees on both sides of the road swayed in the wind, giving the sensation of eerie movement all around us. For a while, it was a gentle sway, but as the wind grew stronger, the branches moved more violently.

Not far from us on the left side of the road, a large branch from one of the trees suddenly snapped from the burden of the wind bending it and fell to the ground with a loud thud. I jumped even closer to Elliot and we both stopped and stared in the direction of where the branch had landed.

Something was glowing in the dark from between the trees. Two yellow eyes, watching us, waiting.

"Elliot…" I said carefully, trying not to trigger whatever was lurking in the shadows, waiting to attack us.

"I can see it," he mumbled.

Two more eyes appeared next to the first pair. Now that I was looking at them together, something about the way they were glowing seemed off to me. Animal eyes often reflected light back and seemed as though they were glowing, but there was no light to reflect in the vicinity and that glow was different. It didn't seem natural.

A third pair of glowing, yellow eyes appeared. Whatever was out there, there was a whole pack of them.

As soon as the fourth pair appeared, a low growl sounded from their direction.

"Liv…" Elliot said to my right as two more pairs joined the others. "They're everywhere."

At that, I took my eyes off the terrifying sight and looked in his direction, only to realize that there were several more pairs of menacing eyes on the other side of the road. Low growls were coming from all around us. The sound gave me the chilling sensation that we were about to be eaten alive by a pack of some kind of a predator.

"What are we gonna do?" I whispered.

"I don't know…" Elliot sounded scared and I felt the little hope that I had being drained from me. "If we start running, they'll chase us. If we stay here, they'll jump us."

"Well, if we run at least we'd be trying to save our lives," I said irritably. It made me angry that he didn't have a solution, even though I knew he was right. There was nothing else we could do to try and save ourselves. The bullets in our guns wouldn't be nearly enough for all the dozens of pairs of eyes looking at us now.

"Ready?" I asked.

"Wait," Elliot grabbed both my upper arms to keep me from moving. "I don't know if we'll make it out of this alive and I need to tell you some things."

"We don't have time for this right now, Elliot," I was dying to hear what he had to say, but I was pretty sure that the beasts around us wouldn't give us the courtesy of waiting until we were finished talking.

"But there's so much I need to say to you –"

"Elliot, we can't right now."

"Liv…"

I sighed. We were wasting viable time because of all the things that were left unsaid between us. "Okay, choose one thing and say it quickly. We have to get out of here. Okay?"

"Okay."

"Great. Go."

"I love you," he said with urgency and without a warning, and then he paused for a moment. "Always have."

I stared at him, completely taken aback, frozen from surprise.

"Just wanted you to know in case… in case I die," he rubbed the back of his head awkwardly.

"El, I…" truth was, I had no idea what to respond. I loved him too, with every fiber of my being, but it wasn't the right time for that kind of talk. On the other hand, I understood where he was coming from and why he felt like he had to say it before we ran to our possible deaths. I didn't want either of us to die without me ever having said it back. Still, it was so hard for me to express it.

"Me too," I muttered eventually, making an effort not to cry. I hoped that he wouldn't notice it in the dark, but then he placed his hand on my cheek and caressed it, as if he was already wiping the tears that weren't there yet.

One of the creatures behind me roared, and I felt Elliot's fingers digging deep into my arms as he instinctively grabbed me again to protect me.

"That's our cue to go," he grabbed my hand again and we started running at once, in sync.

Neither of us looked back, because we were too scared to see what was coming after us, but several of them were roaring behind us as they chased after us. By the sound of it, they were big and they were getting closer. It was a menacing sound, the kind that made you feel like you were hearing death.