Earth, it's inhabitants.

         He shuddered with newfound animosity, racing through the tall and animated forest. Faces bloomed from each corner of the woods, staring silently with stone gazes. His legs swung like the branches, leaping over the land under him. Twigs and scattered debris, odd logs and roots stuck up from their long time on earth. The beauty in nature, in the moonlight reflecting off bark and leaves. He ran past it all.

         He was terrified, with sweat growing on his brow and a moistness to his hands. His eyes were like saucers, always staring straight into the open woods. He couldn’t make a wrong move or the faces would leap out at him. Even now, they were hovering vacantly, moving when they had enough distance between them. There were hordes of these faces, eerily chasing him if he dared to look back.

         What happened then, he wondered. His breath came in shallow, short gasps. He could hear his heart through his neck, like it climbed up his windpipe to stay there and choke him. He saw the moon and the stars, staring above the open path divided by the trees and shrubbery. He only lifted his gaze once, finding himself a moment of peace in this wild chase.

         That moment that lasted for the longest time carried on over two minutes of the chase. If he kept staring up at the sky, maybe he could fly off this miserable planet forever; away from the masks and the faces that want him to obey them. He could form a space colony, a new world. Or maybe, he could just go to sleep. The stars were motioning things to him in his their silence, spelling something out he couldn’t quite see. He squinted up at the dark sky and tripped on a root below him.

         ‘That’s right, I’m on earth.’ he remembered, ‘The stars aren’t something I can grasp easily in my hand.’ His face hit the soft earth, small leaves and twigs hitting his right cheek. His hand steadied his fall. He could hear the wind, moving around the faces that hurried toward him. Their mass was waiting behind him. He tried. He tried to do this for so long, and it was finally catching up to him.

         He flips onto his back. The stars are calling to him, he realizes, in a song. They are whispering great things, chanting melodies that remind him of what he thought life would be. He can feel the stars calling to him, lifting his body off this physical plane, but when he looks down he’s back on earth. The faces are advancing. He covers their curdling gazes with his arms and lifts his head back to the stars. He tries to fall asleep.