Lights Out

Aly

I crashed through the undergrowth with all the grace of a water buffalo. Twigs snapped beneath my heels. Birds shrieked overhead, announcing my presence. I ignored it all and kept on sprinting.

Right now wasn’t about stealth; it was about speed. I was being hunted, and if I had any hope of escaping my fate, I needed to put as much distance between myself and the man who chased me as possible.

The midsummer sun sat high in the cornflower blue sky, baking the forest with its heat. Sweat beaded along my forehead as I leaped over a fallen log and kept on running. The trees were laden with leaves, their lower branches reaching out to grab at my hair and clothes as if trying to slow me down, and the air was so humid that I could feel it pressing in on me like a weighted blanket.