"I won't make it out of this alive!"
The words tore out of my throat raw and unfiltered, ripped free by instinct rather than thought as I sprinted through the forest like prey that had already accepted the shape of its own death.
Branches whipped at my face. Roots clawed at my boots. My lungs burned so badly it felt like they were collapsing inward, each breath scraping my chest raw as if lined with broken glass. The ground beneath my feet wasn't soil so much as a living thing, slick with moss, warped by mana, pulsing faintly with something that didn't belong in any sane world.
Behind me, something screamed.
Not a roar.
Not a howl.
A wet, chittering shriek layered with the bleating cry of a goat and the shrill screech of something that should have lived in treetops, not nightmares. The sound scraped against my spine and sent cold lightning racing through my nerves.
It was close.
Too close.
