Hunted

Hunted.

Sebastian ran.

He ran as though the whole of hell were chasing him. As though death pursued him with jaws wide open to devour his soul in the night.

Legs pumping, breath gasping, arms flailing - he ran. Furious. Fast. Reckless. Terror pounded through his veins; thick and hot, like the life blood that pumped through with it. Eyes rolled white in his skull; pale circles of light in the darkness of the forest.  The wind threw back his hair in a flowing mass of golden silk, and he ran.

Tree branches whipped his body as he passed, scoring thin red lines that swelled with slivers of blood from broken flesh of his arms. Hands grasping out ahead of him, he stumbled in frantic flight through the  moonlit forest. Branches cracked and crunched beneath his feet. Black boots scuffed and worn. Faded blue jeans torn and ripped from encounters with the clawed arms of the skeletal trees that rose from the black earth around. Menacing minions of the evil that pursued him.

Blinded by the fear; primal, screaming terror that threatened to rip to shreds the tattered remnants of sanity, he crashed headlong through the undergrowth. Tripping and falling and stumbling. Scrambling once again to shaking legs to drag himself faster away and onwards. Running right into the maw of the unknown.

***

Savannah dropped into a crouch. Blue eyes furrowed in annoyance as she ran her fingers across the rain wet floor of the forest; lightly tracing the scuffed outline of a boot - recently made in the rain slick mud. She lifted her head sharply, eagle eyes staring down the path that wound through the centre of the forest.

No... Not that way. We're too smart for that.

Turning her head to the left first, and then the right, she stared into the depths of the darkness. The soft whisper of the wind rattled the leaves above and all around her, filling the air with light rustling and the patter of fallen raindrops. A spattering of drops loosened from the outstretched branches of a huge oak, sending the shower down to sprinkle distractingly across the shoulders of her coat.

Pat-pat-pat in the silence.

Savannah lifted her hand to brush the rainwater from her coat, pale fingers stroking across the dark fabric silently.

Now, which way did you go? Left... Or right...

Somewhere in the branches of the uncountable trees an owl hooted into the night. A lonely call. Savannah's lips twisted up into a sardonic smile.

A lonely hunter. Except the owl probably already has its eyes on the mouse.

As if in answer to her thought, the branches rattled and cracked in the distance. A squeal of terror pierced the night. The silence that followed was almost as painful.

Poor mouse...

She dove into the undergrowth.

***

His ankle betrayed him in the end.

The crack of snapping bone reverberated through the deathly silence as his footing gave out on the steep slope. A steep valley that cut through the forest. He'd made it two thirds of the way in and now he was to fall?

With a strangled scream of pain he crashed to the floor. Slithering, sliding, rolling... Careening uncontrolled down the muddy slope to land in a tangled heap on the valley floor. For a moment he lay there, unable to move, fearful of slipping further. Until eventually it became clear that his descent had stopped.

Spitting out a mouth of muddied leaves and dirt he tried to lever himself up to sit on the ground. He stared through pain clouded eyes at the mangled mess of his foot. The limb was twisted, an angle that was painfully unnatural to look at; a flash of white bone visible under the moonlight. A pool of red spread warm and wet fingers up the leg of his tattered and stained jeans and pooled into the wet, liquid mud of the forest floor.

With a howl of frustration he threw his head back to the moon. A pale, cold, unfeeling witness to the injustice of fate. Unsympathetic watcher in the darkness of the deep, despairing night.

Bending his one good leg he grabbed hold of the trunk of the tree beside him and tried to lever himself to his feet. Pulling, straining, panting and grasping he dragged himself onto the one leg and glanced around him; taking in what was visible of his surroundings from this new perspective.

He had slid perhaps ten meters down the steep and slippery slope behind him. What lay before him now was shrouded in mist and darkness. The light of the moon illuminating only a depressingly unending forest of monstrous trees. An unassailable assault course from which he had little hope of escaping...

He hopped forwards trying to hobble away - little hope was better than no hope after all, but as he moved, his injured foot knocked against a protruding root. The burning, screaming pain that ripped through his shattered foot and up his shaking legs dropped him to the floor again with a cry of frustration and agony.

He slammed his hand into the unyielding trunk of the tree. Thick, scratchy bark bruising the tender flesh.

Not now! Not like this!

"And here I was, thinking you would get further than this!" cold, sinister voice in the darkness. It echoed from the top of the slope down which he had fallen. It rolled smooth and almost musical through the night air to reach his ears. A jolt of terror pumped through his heart; over-riding the pain for an instant of jarring awareness.

Too late. He wouldn't have made it anyway.

The fox had caught up with the rabbit. And the rabbit had nowhere left to run.

Sebastian snarled, reaching out around him, fingers scrabbling through the mud and dirt and leaves for something, anything that he could use to defend himself against the unholy horror that was looming on the bank above him...

His fingers danced over a branch. He brought them back again, frantically wrapping his hand about its thick and solid length; poor security at best but it was something. He dragged it out from the mud, brushing the last thick traces from its bark so that he might hold it better. The tip was jagged and broken, sharp edges like teeth from here it has snapped from its tree.

A club if it came to it. A poor substitute for a knife perhaps if he could stab with enough force...

What are you waiting for? Come get me!

False bravado of one who knows that death descends, now, in the night.

***

Savannah stood outlined against the pale moonlight at the top of the slope, staring down at the crumpled figure of her prey. The marks of the human's descent were visible to the eye, even without the sharpness of demonic vision nor the feeble light of the moon. He'd made quite a mess of it really.

"And there I was, thinking you'd get further than this!" Blood red, lips parted to call down her taunt. Her blue eyes were captivated; attention entranced by the frantic movements of her human prey. Much better this hunt through the woods at night than the simple taking of a soul on some crowded city street. No longer veiled in the shadows or darting from the light of day; hiding from the feeble human cattle that populated and fouled this world.

This was better. This was hunting. This was true and noble sport. This was life and death entwined in epic battle, chasing each other across the vastness of the night, with only the moon for company, and the silent call of the owl as music.

She took a step forwards.

The human brandished his 'weapon' and waited.

Savannah laughed.

Pitiful sight. Woeful prey. The hunt has come to its final end, as all knew it would - and yet still it fights to be saved. As though some final show of courage could stave off the cold, dark embrace of death.

The laugher ripped through the silence. It shattered the night. It pierced the ears of her terrified prey who cowered back against the tree.

The laughter roared.

A roar of fury. A roar of hunger. A roar of malice and terrifying monstrosity as she threw her arms out wide. Leaping from the ledge, her coat billowing like a pair of monstrous black wings, she dove from the edge of the slope.

In a flash of liquid darkness, a movement that lasted but a second, she cleared the hill and landed on the opposite side of boy.

Sebastian yelled in terror. He brandished his branch, its torn and pointed edge held out, his muscles ready to plunge it deep into the heart of his tormentor.

"Mortal toys..." the hunter whispered, sliding forwards without a sound. Her eyes bore down on her fragile prey, and shaking hands had no time to act as the demon grabbed him by the shoulders and hurled him back against the strong and silent , trunk of the tree.

The moon stared down and watched.

"I really was expecting more from you." Savannah's voice was dry with sarcasm. One hand held the mortal in a firm and solid grip against the tree. The other lifted to run slender fingers down his cheek. A single, sharpened nail scored a thin red line against the cold, terror-pale skin.

Not a word escaped from between her captives lips. But a whimper, soft yet clear in the silence of the night broke free. Unable to move, held captive by those icy eyes, his breath came in frantic gasps. He twitched within the monsters grip.

Savannah shifted, slamming her other hand now into Sebastian's shoulder, holding him still. Pale blue eyes darkened, pupils widened turning the depths into deep, bottomless bits of darkness and empty, gnawing hunger. And with a savage snarl she drew back her lips and bit down into the tender flesh of the neck. Razor sharp fangs sliced through the skin like a knife through butter, and the thick warm, pumping stream filled her mouth. She swallowed; the gnawing, biting hunger of the beast slackening its grip about her heart as the blood sated and fed it. She drank. And drank. And drank.

Small whimpers and twitches from her prey echoed in the night air, ignored by the hunter lost deep in the depths of hungry pleasure.

She drifted, the vampire, on a sea of blood red stars. The hot, vicious swell of the life stream filling her mouth and burning her throat as she swallowed it down. The hunger inside her screaming for more, but screaming softer and softer each passing moment.

And then there was pain.

Blossoming out from beneath her breast it came. Sharp, sudden agony. It pushed her back, dropping her gasping victim to the floor as she stared down at the protruding stump of the weapon. A branch; solid and bloodstained projected out from her chest. The blood ran; thick rivulet's coursing rivers along its length, merging with the wet mud already there before spilling to pool at her feet.

She lifted her gaze, astonishment burning in pale blue eyes, to the crumpled mortal form that lay discarded at the foot of the great tree. Crumpled... Yet it's chest rose and fell with an irregular rhythm. Breath coming out of the pair of them in short, tortured gasps.

Even as she fell to her knees, weakness devouring the strength in her limbs she knew...

"My life to end yours... To curse the cursed. Vampire... Back to the dust and ash from which you came."

She fell forward into the mud, rolling onto her back, gasping out final, fated breaths. Beside her, her victim dragged himself to one knee with a low groan of pain. She could not see, but she could imagine - his hands pressing to the jagged wounds at his throat, blood flowing swiftly, spilling from the wound. How would he stop the bleeding? An arterial wound should spurt out his remaining life in mere moments - and yet they always survived. These hunters. A plague to her kind.

Her back arched as she lay on the ground, shrieking out defiance to the night. Her night.

And the true hunter laughed. The demon's body convulsed once more, and the collapsed against the muddy ground. A moment later the bones disintegrated, dust filling the air.

The wind blew, and the demon was no more.