It was all too much.
There were too many of them, and they were closing in. She looked over her shoulder, panting. She willed her heartbeat to slow so they wouldn’t hear it. She closed her eyes and breathed.
If you control your breathing, you control your pain, she told herself.
She peeked around the corner, trying to see if they were still following her. She must have made some sort of noise because they all turned to look at her, wheeling their evil faces around to her as one. They moved as one, barreling down on her.
She scrambled to her feet and ran. Her legs were on fire, and each breath heaved out of her with the sting of a thousand razor blades. She kept running. She couldn’t stop.
To stop was to die.
She glanced over her shoulder as she rounded a corner. They were closer still. Close enough that one of them reached out and grabbed her shoulder. She stumbled, skinning her jaw on the gravel that should have been beneath her feet.
As she skidded to a stop, abrasions tearing through her skin, the tears came. This was it. This was the end.
She was going to die, and there would be no more.
They approached and bent their haunches, their inhuman voices swirling around and growing into a screaming whisper. She couldn’t understand their evil words as they moved over and around her. She closed her eyes and gave herself over to grief.
She would never get to do the things she had planned. She was never going to do anything ever again. She was going to cease to be.
She took a deep breath, and acceptance rolled through her like warm water. She wasn’t angry. She wasn’t scared. She didn’t try to bargain.
She opened her eyes and looked her tormentors in their hollow faces.
“I’m ready,” she whispered.
The one at the front seemed to nod, and then they were on her, rending and consuming as they moved over her like a swarm of locusts until nothing was left.
