Work Text:
Run.
Running
Faster, faster, faster
Breathe and run
1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3
Move your feet
Deep breathes: in, out, in, out and run
faster.
Don’t you dare stop.
Keep your head, keep on your feet and keep moving.
1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3
go go go go
Ignore the burning. Ignore the ache, the niggles, the strains. Ignore the sting of the foliage as it snaps back to your face, whipping the exposed skin on your arms and ankles.
Just keep running.
Not much longer. Can’t hear them anymore. But then again, breathing too ragged to hear properly over gulping breathes and trampled undergrowth pounded by frantic footfalls.
Just a bit further.
Another minute. Another five. Maybe ten - just to be sure.
There
(where the trees are denser)
There we can hide. There we can learn, we can orientate.
One last push…
Quiet now.
Hushhhh
Come on lungs, function like you were made for air.
If this were a game of hide and seek I’d be stood behind the dressing gown hung on the back of the door with a hand clapped over my mouth absolutely certain that I sounded, to the seeker, as if I had chain smoked fifty a day for the last millennia and they had a microphone taped across my sweaty upper lip.
Back pressed to a thick tree trunk.
It’s solidity is oddly comforting.
The bark is rough and unwieldy.
A dark brown.
The pain of flesh to wood is grounding.
Nature’s cheese grater.
Ha!
Stop it.
Okay…
No one left, no one right, no one straight, tree behind
No one up, no one straight, ground below
Good.
Listen.
Shut up pulse, shut up breath. Get out of my head. Or rather, give my head space. Give my mind space. Damn you
No, don’t panic
Breeaaathe
I can’t, I can’t, what if they’re here, I don’t believe I lost them, but I was running for a while, but they will be catching up and then I won’t be able to lose them again. I can’t hide. I can’t stop breathing. They’ll get me here and the trees aren’t good for climbing, besides have to eat, or sleep, or escape
You’re being Paranoid.
Can’t be paranoid if the threat it real.
Smart arse
I won’t let them get me
Snap.
Freeze.
IN move OUT run IN go OUT faster IN…
An upturned root, a stone, a stifled scream.
Black
.