The ground quaked. Tremors dug through the dirt. He could hear rumbles shrill across the forest as it shook with rage, packed soil below him snapping apart in rigid cracks. All around him trees violently swayed back and forth, their lower stems were uprooted in an instant. He paused for a second, wearily turning around and around, searching for what could make such cacophony. The cracks grew in size, from narrow ridges to deep crevasses, everything around him shifted and moved from the quake's influence.
No...what is this? He thought with delusion.
Though he could barely think. Fear had overwhelmed him to the point where all things around him were turned into something to be afraid of. From insects scuttling across patches of lichen to the subtle drifting of the clouds, all things had something to be fearful of. He kept running, avoiding his interests and ran with his eyes nearly shut. He didn't need to see them, if he just ran, everything would be over. From the slightest catch of his ear, a muffled moan echoed from the ground.
"Urrruuughhh…"
The moans from underneath grew louder, the tremors quaked the ground harder and harder. Something below the soil was crawling up to the surface, whole trees faltered and toppled to the rot under them. The man couldn't breathe, he couldn't take one look behind.
"Urrruuaaaghh…"
The thing kept digging up, the muffled scraping of its claws thinning out. Soil mounded up in piles like anthills, as a disfigured arm raised from the loose clusters of dirt and seized the terrain. The man suddenly stopped, every aspect of his fear conjured up and was taken by the presence. He quivered in dread of what this monstrosity was. Instinct had possessed him as he mindlessly turned around.
No. It couldn't be. All the haunts told by others to scare children, was this really what they told? No. They were mere senseless drones, walking the night with no awareness. But now, he was staring directly at the face of it. Completely real. In the flesh. Even the children were not scared of their stories.
But if they saw one now, they would be absolutely mortified.
Another arm raised from the chasm it made, and the two moved and repositioned. The limbs were extremely injured, parts of decaying skin were torn down, opening wounds of rotting muscle and tendon. The skin was pale, covered with gray dirt and decay. The arms lifted up the creature's body, with the rotted corpse of a man exhumed from the ground.
"Auuurrrrghhhh…"
His brown coat was tattered with rips and blood, his shriveled, necrotic skin snapped and crunched through his joints, The corpse stood still and didn't move an inch, his head bent down. Even from a distance, he could smell the putrid odor the corpse emitted.
There wasn't a sound in the area, still the corpse stood dead still. The man couldn't move at all, it felt like a force was pulling him back every time he tried to run away. The corpse twitched, the sound of his breathing grew louder. Suddenly, the person immediately staggered up, blood spewed out his unhinged jaw.
"URAAAGHHHH!"
The man bolted out of his way, blood rushing through him faster than ever. The corpse stormed after him, screaming. His eyes had no pupils, every part throughout his body was torn up and bleeding, and the way it stumbled behind him looked like every bone was broken. Another person bursted out of the ground, this one with some sort of blue ooze over its flesh-cleaned skull.
The two lurched behind him, with no hesitation at all. More and more hordes of undead clawed out of the soil, all of them running rampant onto the man. An arm dug out the dirt under him and seized his ankle, slamming him straight onto the ground, digging into his skin and around his bone. The hordes were catching up. In his final efforts, the man grabbed the hand and pried it open with full force, snapping off its fingers. The hand shook in agony as the man quickly stumbled up and bolted away.
The man could see in the distance, where the forest opened up to a large plain. The hand made a gaping wound on his ankle, blood spewing out vigorously. The hordes of corpses collided and bumped into each other, though barely any of them could catch up to the man. With every painfull step, he moved closer and closer to the end. The man stormed away in the different direction he headed, the corpses puzzled about where he ran. He crashed out of the forest and collapsed onto a broken log, exhausted from what he just encountered. The man finally caught breath, blood and gore dripping on his body. The corpses lost track of where he went.
The man took a glance around the field, and an indistinguishable figure stumbled into view, coated with armor.