As I looked through the somewhat dense foliage, I could see her staring at the bush intently. Hopefully her hesitation meant she hadn’t seen me, at least not for sure anyway. Her eyes scanned across my hiding spot several times, I was trying to be as still as possible, but my current situation made that intensely difficult. Her eyes passed over my position again, wait, they’ve stopped. Oh god she is staring right at me! My mind was racing, dare I move while she’s looking in an attempt to become more hidden or should I remain still and hope she can’t see me!? Incidentally she had finally stopped dancing; I didn’t take that as a good sign. I made my choice and slowly started moving back farther into the bush, a smile formed on her face. Shit.

              Assuming that smile meant what I thought it meant, I needed to move, and quick. I threw caution to the wind and headed in a random direction deeper into the trees. Hopefully they would slow her down a bit, although they were quite a ways apart from each other. I glanced behind me just in time to see her start to chase me, in a dancing manner yet again. I looked back in front of me to make sure that I didn’t run into anything, and had to quickly dive out of the way of an incoming jeep! Where the hell did that come from? The driver seemed just as confused on the fact as he swerved to avoid me. The thing had stopped moving and was watching the jeep as it just so happened to be headed her way; the driver didn’t seem to notice her.

“Look out!” I called to him, hoping he would at least notice her legs in his vehicles path.

“Huh… wha?” he glanced back at me then towards where he was heading, “What the hell is that!?” he screamed before he managed to avoid ramming into her.

Fortunately for him, he had enough sense not to stop as he sped off continuing in the direction behind the thing. Suddenly it turned and started chasing him, moving more than twice as fast as it was before! Damn, was it teasing us before!? I had no time to think about that, who knows what else was here not to mention the possibility of it coming back. I picked the direction I was heading before, opposite the way it went, and started walking. Well more like slow running, albeit cautiously. It wasn’t long before I heard the sound of an engine again, and stomping.

Without even looking in the direction it was coming from I darted behind a tree. As I pressed my back to the side opposite the noise, I saw the same jeep zoom past the tree, followed closely by the same giant creature. She seemed too interested in the thing to notice me, thank god. He must have turned back at the river, it’s a damned miracle he hasn’t been caught. I started heading in a direction perpendicular to the one they took and hoped anything else dangerous in the area was being attracted by the noise they were making.

I came across an area drastically different from what I’ve seen so far. At first I thought it was an enormous cave, but then I noticed the ‘roof’ of the ‘cave’ was made up of the tops of trees dense enough to block out sunlight. It was more forest, but incredibly dark. I had enough sense not to wonder in, so I started heading around the area. After a while I got the impression the area was too big for me to simply walk around, I also developed the annoying and uncomfortable feeling of being watched. I stopped at the trunk of a tree and sat down leaning on it to take the time to think. As I pondered how I got here thoughts of home flew into my mind. I couldn’t keep myself from crying.

“What’s wrong?” a voice asked from the darkness.

“Huh? Who’s there!?” I asked startled.

“I asked my question first,” it simply replied.

“I want to go home,” I figured starting a conversation would be a better idea then running.

“Oh, you’re not from here?” it asked.

“No, I’m from Ohio,” I responded.

“Well, I don’t know where that is, but I know of a way that may get you back there.”

“Really?” I had managed to determine, whatever it was, was about 5 feet in front of me. Somewhere in the darkness.

“Yeah, there’s an item deep in the maze that can return anyone not from around here back to their home.”

“What maze? Where is it?”

“The Tenebra maze, here in the Evernight forest.”

“Is it close?” I had gotten up and stepped towards the darkness. I realized my mistake too late.

I stepped back only to feel my left arm caught by something, as I tried to pull it free I could see what was clinging to it. It looked like the darkness itself had grabbed me, as I pulled it felt like it was pushing into my arm as well as pulling on it. Eventually it seemed to stop and my arm was freed, but I couldn’t even feel it. For safety I ran, limp arm dangling, away from Evernight, assuming he wasn’t lying about the name. After I made it what I deemed to be a safe distance away, I rested against a tree. I examined my arm, the skin was dark very dark, bastard must have poisoned me. But why did he let go?

I didn’t have much time to think about this as the same damn jeep from before slammed into a nearby tree. The driver cursed loudly and exited the broken vehicle. Of course not too far behind was it again, god damn I can’t seem to get away from that thing. Worst of all night was falling and god knows what nocturnal predators lived here. I felt my left shoulder move and looked at my arm; it had somehow dug its fingers into the tree and seemed to be getting darker. My shoulder also started to go numb; I pulled my sleeve up and noticed it was spreading. The man screamed as he was lifted into the air, more than likely to meet the same fate as the previous man to be caught by her. My shoulder was completely black now and it spread to the rest of my body, starting up my neck last. I couldn’t feel anything that had darkened, and was losing the feeling of my neck. As I felt the numbness spread to my face, my vision faded.