The forest swallowed her whole.
The air was thick with damp earth and the scent of rain-soaked leaves. Twisted branches stretched like skeletal fingers, clawing at her skin as she pushed forward. Shadows pooled beneath the towering trees, shifting and breathing as if the night itself was alive.
Jane ran.
Her pulse was a wild, frantic drum, her breath coming in sharp, ragged gasps. The cold bit into her exposed skin, but fear burned hotter than any winter chill. She had escaped the building - but not him.
Behind her - footsteps.
Slow. Measured. Unhurried.
He wasn't running. He didn't have to.
She glanced back. Nothing. Just darkness and shifting trees. But she knew better. He was there. He had always been there.
The wind howled through the branches, whispering through the leaves, twisting into something almost like her name. The hairs on the back of her neck rose. She ran faster.
The forest floor was uneven, roots and rocks lying in wait beneath thick undergrowth. Every step was a risk, every second stolen. Her legs screamed, her lungs burned, but she couldn't stop. Stopping meant death.
A snap of a branch - too close.
Jane's heart leapt to her throat. She veered sharply, nearly losing her footing, her feet skidding over wet leaves. A ravine loomed ahead, its edge lost in mist and darkness. No way forward.
Trapped.
Her body trembled. She spun around, pressing herself against the rough bark of a tree, chest rising and falling in erratic gasps. Think. Think. THINK.
Then - he stepped into view.
The shadows twisted around him, clinging to his frame like living things. Moonlight slashed through the trees, catching the edges of his figure. Tall. Composed. Certain.
He cocked his head slightly. The silence stretched, thick and suffocating.
"You ran well," he murmured, voice smooth, almost amused. "But you knew I'd find you."
Jane's nails dug into the bark behind her. She was shaking - from exhaustion, from fear, from something she didn't want to name.
His boots crunched against the damp earth as he took a slow step forward. Then another.
Jane's breath hitched.
"Don't," she choked out.
He smiled.
The kind of smile that belonged to the dark.
Then, as if the night itself whispered it - his voice curled through the air, soft, inevitable:
"I told you, love… I always catch you."