You are running for your life in the dead of night.
The air is cool on your bare face and arms. The moon hides behind fat clouds. On either side of you, familiar houses stand tall and quiet on their respective hillsides. Their siding glows white against the black sky. No lights on in the windows, and you know without checking that the doors are locked, the people inside asleep and unaware.
You consider screaming for help, but you can’t find enough air. Your lungs burn on every inhale; your chest heaves on every exhale. Even if you could cry out, they’d never hear you from this distance.
But he would. He’d hear you, and he’d find you.
So you swallow your scream. Sprint frantic through the valley instead, straight for the old oak you climbed as a child. Pray the branches can still hold you.
It’s not that far, maybe a mile out. But the grass between is thick and wild. It whips at your calves; it tangles around your ankles. Your legs ache with the effort, and you stumble. Once. Twice. Make it halfway before your left foot catches and twists on a hidden rock, and you fall. Hard.
Black crickets spring up around you, singing their disapproval. They quiet a moment later, and that’s when you hear it: the whistle and slice of a long blade in tall grass.
Swish. Pause. Swish.
You roll over, sit up, try to stand, fall back.
Swish. Pause. Swish.
The crickets’ start up again. Harsher this time, louder. Their disapproval turned to annoyance. It sounds like an alarm cutting through the dark night. You silently beg them to still their wings, but it’s too late. This time when they quiet, the blade has stopped swinging.
A chill creeps up your spine in the new silence. He knows you’re close, is listening for you. You cover your mouth, try to steady your panting breath. Squeeze your eyes shut, press yourself down into the ground like a field mouse hiding from a hawk.
As if he won’t see you. As if you could survive.
But then he steps toward you. Slow but sure-footed. The thick tread of his boots softened by the grass. Between steps, his breathing, until he stands at your feet, and you hear his lips parting in a wet grin.
You open your eyes. He’s a black shadow looming.
He raises his blade. You scream.
And then—you wake up.
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