#i really really really need to stop procrastinating
A whumpy little excerpt that I wrote a while ago. It’s not the full scene but just the dramatic stuff.
POV: Anjelika
Warnings: blood, death, accidental stabbing, throat injury, vomiting.
The rain is mercilessly pounding against me, cold and bitter and hard as it soaks me completely, chilling me to my core in the night-time wind that gushes through the trees here. It’s cold, so very cold.
But I can’t stop running.
I can barely see 10 feet in front of me, and that makes every single tree root a potentially fatal hazard. My feet are screaming in the shoes I’m wearing, simple black pumps that are absolutely not designed for sprinting through dense woodland after sunset. It’s very dark, in combination with the clouds that block the moon completely from view, as well as the night sky a deep black above and beyond those same clouds. I have no point of reference for where I am even going, I barely even know where I am.
My feet are in control, taking me anywhere, trying to get me away from there.
My lungs are on fire, and my breathing is deep and ragged from my constant and current exertion. I can’t seem to run fast enough, and I feel my heart beating furiously in my chest. My legs feel heavier and heavier with every step I force myself to take in such quick succession.
The man behind me is getting closer. I can hear him.
My feet crunched the leaves and twigs on the forest floor, all damp with the pouring rain yet still barely audible above the rumble of thunder in the distance.
I daren’t look back, it would only slow me down. My only chance is to outrun him. I can’t stop, I won’t stop, I need to keep going!
I can hear him yelling through the environmental chaos at me, but I can’t make out a single word that he’s shouting at me. I don’t want him to get any closer for me to find out. He knows, he knows who I am. He knows, and he wants to take advantage of that. He wants to take me away, send me back, but I don’t want to!
The woodland thinned out a little as I sprinted straight, not noticing the dip in the ground until it was too late. I hadn’t expected the drop – it wasn’t much of a drop – but it was enough to cause me to cry out in surprise. I ended up with my foot submerged in a shallow stream, and I felt my ankle land awkwardly against a rock. Shock from the cold and a sharp pain coursed through me, but it did not stop me. Not because I wanted to, because I needed to.
I was out of the stream within another step yet the momentary hesitation had slowed me down, and that was a few golden seconds that I could not afford to waste. I hated the feeling of my wet feet, I’ll get ill if I don’t – no. Not important. I’ll die, let alone get ill, if he catches me!
Splashes behind me barely a second later told me that he was right there, having just crossed the stream too. I can’t even process what the environment directly in front of me is like because all I can think about is how close he is now. I had not gone far, and I was struggling to breathe now. No amount of casual training with Anja had prepared me for this, and the already waning power of my adrenaline has only gotten me so far.
Not far enough.
I was still fighting to stay ahead of the man, but when I felt a brutal hand pull at the back of my shirt, and I screamed.
“I’ve got you now, you little –!“ I can hear him growl into my ear, something sharp at my side, and the way his voice sent a shiver through me in combination with the bitter air was almost unbearable.
His violent attempt to pull me to a halt, and my own attempt at keeping running, was thwarted by me losing my footing completely. I somehow escaped his grip – at the expense of tumbling down the hill completely out of control.
He seemed to fall immediately after me, but I couldn’t tell. I had screwed my eyes shut, trying to fight back the dizziness from the beating my body was taking. Hitting every single rock and branch. Thankfully no trees.
It’s a brief stumble, but still enough to wind me once the slope levels off.
As I finally roll to a stop at the bottom, well and truly battered by the fall, covered in dirt and soaked with rain, I expect to hear my pursuer recover faster than I and grab me, to try and take me away.
But it doesn’t happen.
I look around for him, and he’s some five feet away from me, behind me, shaking and convulsing, lying on his back staring up at the sky, not knowing or caring that I’m even here. There’s an awful gurgling sound and it takes me a few moments to realise what it is.
As I get up to my feet and step closer, looking over him, I can see clearly what is causing the awful sound.
The man is clutching at his throat, eyes wide with panic and coughing up blood so fast I’m surprised he hasn’t choked. I see the blade embedded in his throat, deep and deadly.
I can feel the colour drain from my face, and my vision dims with a fuzzy feeling, like I’m going to pass out. My legs give in beneath me and I collapse to my knees clutching my stomach. My insides churn and twist and I feel like I’m going to be sick. I can’t look away, somehow. Watching him bleed out in front of me, those awful sounds as he tries to breathe, to speak – something.
The man’s convulsions suddenly stop, and he stills, the blood from that gaping wound spreading onto the ground where he lay, unmoving, lifeless.
Dead.
I can’t hold it back anymore, and I retch up what little I had eaten earlier. My hands are shaking so hard that I grip onto the grass to try and stop them trembling, but even then I can’t.
My throat hurts with my wrecked sobs that I manage to choke up after spitting up all the bile. It hurts, and even breathing hurts here.
I can’t believe that just happened. I can’t believe it.
I killed a man.
What did I -? Why -?
I didn’t mean to do it, but… I didn’t know he had a knife! I didn’t know he would – I didn’t know he would fall like that, that he would –
The crack of lightning that strikes, and the deep rumble of thunder jolts me back to my senses, clearing my thoughts enough to realise I am still in a lot of trouble.
I stumble backwards, trying to get to my feet without looking at the man’s fresh corpse before I throw up again.
I’m lost, I don’t know where I am, I don’t even know where I can go to from here, but I have to keep going.
I have to.
