I ran and I ran. Away from police sirens that screamed out, gnawing at my ears, forcing the screeches into my ears. It hurt, but I was stubborn, and had long since retreated into the eerie wilderness that now surrounds my body, as my energy run low after the rush of adrenaline has started to wear off. I cannot make out any of the voices of the officers in the distance, they’re all just blabbering gibberish to me. Always has been, but I never understood why.
I spoke to myself, “It’s all gonna be okay in the end. You’ll be fine, Derek, you’ll be fine.” The words I spoke flowed out of my mouth like tea from a kettle. I grunted as a pain shot up my leg, and I look down, seeing a blackish substance flowing out of my lower left leg. I’d only assumed the police had fired warning shots, but with my leg now bleeding, I wasn’t so sure. I just hoped my body could survive the rest of the way without suffering from too much blood loss. It hurt to walk, hurt to go on, but I was stubborn. Much more stubborn than a bunch of pigs.
I growled in annoyance, practically snarling at the pain, and the black substance that leaked out, felt too much of it leaking. It needed to get patched but I had no clue on what to even try to do. I had no medical knowledge, no herbal remedies, no supplements, no anything! I was just a kid, wasn’t I? I thought I was, but then my dad went crazy, saying he “saw me for the beast I was,” or some insane thing that old people like him say. It wasn’t my fault mom left him, it was his, and all he does is take it out on me! I’m not the ones who the cops should be trying to put in jail, he is!
I snarled, and I could swear I felt a sharp pain in my jaw. I grasped at it, but found my fingers weren’t bent right. I wanted to scream, but the in my leg only gave way to snarling. I fell to the ground, trying to get a hold on something, pulling my head up. That’s when my eyes caught sight of it, a beautiful creature, black as night. It surely wasn’t a bear, it was far too thin, but it was too big to be anything else. It towered like a Goddess of night, her fur ever-shifting, as if her raw power forced her body to move like the shadows that cast her. She was like a wolf, her coat drenched in the absence of light so absolute, with her pure white eyes betrayed her intelligence.
I could do nothing but gaze up at the serenely horrifying visage, the Duchess of Shadows herself, writhing in pain. I thought something as primal as her would not dare to touch my modernized form, yet she stayed, gazing upon my injury, not studying my weakened body, yet understanding with such motherly attentiveness I barely mistook her for my own mother. The snap of branches nearby alerted the beast into some kind of protective barrier atop my own, as if cloaking me from the nearby voices of the policemen who had shot at me, were hunting me. I felt a presence, neither cold nor warm, but perhaps somewhere so in between or out of my perception of temperature that I simply cannot feel it.
Their voices and words still remained a mystery, up until I could feel them come closer. And then, a massacre. I don’t know what exactly happened to make the beast attack in such a brutal manner, perhaps it was the lights of the guns that gave my leg a burning feeling every time a shot fired, or they had gotten too close to her. But why had she not reacted the same way with me? I watched, her claws ripping through each officer’s soft, supple, yet heavily armored bodies like they were but leaves to her. I heard her roars of retribution, for what they did to me. I wondered why they were for me, when I knew nothing of her, and her of me. Or was I perhaps too rash in such a decision? All I could say about the current situation is that I was starting to get tired. My breathing slowed, and with a groan I fell asleep, but not before seeing the face of darkness incarnate. She looked so beautiful.