The night holds itself still, strangled of breath.
I cannot...
The grass rises taller than me.
Not swaying, but bending inward,
As if the stalks themselves are ribs,
Closing around a lung that isn’t mine.
Each blade scrapes raw down my arms,
Whispers in a tongue of splinter and rot,
Sliding along skin as though to peel it back.
I run.
But it is never enough.
Never fast enough.
The sound of them leaks through the dark
Lungs wet with mucus,
Breaths snagging like torn cloth.
The grass parts where I never passed,
Snaps and shudders under weight
That is not my own.
Something heavy. Something wrong.
They're close.
They're always close.
I can feel them
The way you feel lightning
Before it strikes
A tremor in the bones,
A silence stretched
Too tight.
I do not look back.
That is the rule.
To see them is to feed them.
To fear them is to bleed.
But my body betrays me.
My heart riots in my chest,
Hammering bruises into bone.
My lungs rip with each gulp,
Spilling air like a split sack.
My legs tear themselves raw,
Fibers straining, tendons burning...
Yet I never let myself run full tilt.
To sprint would confess the truth...
I am their prey.
Above, the sky watches.
Stars like needle pricks in a corpse’s skin.
The moon unhinges its mouth,
Grinning thinly and wide. Yellowed,
Like a blade slick with fat.
Time thickens
With every step a drowning,
Every breath a wound.
And behind me:
The sound of them
Moving with impossible patience.
Behind me,
Their bodies drag.
Heavy. Patient.
The sound of joints bending wrong
Of flesh folding wetly.
Hunters who have run this path before.
Hunters who will never tire.
I do not know what they are.
Only that they are many.
Only that they want me moving.
This is the nightmare.
Not their chase,
But the promise it is endless.
It only pauses
Until the grass grows high again,
And their jaws close the night around me.