I Was Being Followed

                I was being followed; that much was for sure because I could feel it. Exactly what I could feel, I don’t know but I knew it wasn’t friendly and it wanted something, so I began to run but stumbled and fell only a few yards from where I began, and pain shoots through my ankle. I look up to see only to familiar fog that blinds my path three feet away from my face. I turn towards the direction at which I felt the mysterious presence coming toward me, but there is only the same fog, and silence.

                I was not imagining this, I know I wasn’t, I could feel a pair of cold eyes staring into the back of my head, and to me that was enough to believe that I was in danger. This path was not unfamiliar to me; I walk it every day after work to get to my house as sort of a short cut instead of walking through all of the neighboring subdivisions. The path is beaten, and there is hardly anyone ever on it, and the only ones that travel on it are bike riders, but it is too dark and foggy for that now. Just me, and the mysterious being that stalks my every move.

                I pick myself up with caution and limp toward my destination, which should only be a mile or so away by now, but who could tell for sure when you can hardly see your hand in front of your face. I can’t help but cackle at the fact that I am so frightened, because I’m shaking so hard that it’s giving me a migraine. I think back to the time that I’m with my family at a nearby cave park, and I fell into a deep crevice that opened up in the ground upon me spending over it, that is the last time I ever remember being this scared. The thought of my family wrenches my heart and drives me to hobble my way home faster, but then I hear it, a deep gurgling growl that arises through the trees that makes my knees buckle beneath me. The growl came from behind me so I refuse to look in that direction, because I know that once I do I may see what I have been dreading this whole time.

                My throat aches and I realize that I am yelling for help at the top of my lungs, but no response is returned except the sounds of breaking twigs coming from behind me.  Sweat pouring down my face, I look back at the noise and a silhouette stands before me about four feet away, still staring at me.

                “What do you want?” I cry out at the beast. I watch as its three fingered hand draws into one pointed finger and slowly fixates it on me. I scream before I know what else to do, and for a moment it is all that I can do. Slowly the beast lurches towards me, isolating every bone in my body; I cannot walk, I cannot talk, my body is still aside from the constant shake that convulses my body.

                This cannot be my end I have way too much relying on me, and my mind races back to the thought of my family standing in front of the house. Mom is watering the garden and dad is teaching my little brother how to catch a baseball. The memory shoots a pang through my heart and tears through my eyes. I look to my right as to escape the frightening sight of this terrible beast standing above me willing to take my life at any instant, and notice the large drop off that flows off of the trail. I took my only opportunity and I rolled, not knowing what was below awaiting me there. Hitting branch after branch, I finally find the ground, and everything goes black.

                I wake up in the hospital, and the bright lights burn my slowly opening eyes. I look to my right and see that my arm is in a cast, and my family is by my bed asleep. Relief courses throughout my body at the sight of safety, and a tear rolls down my eye. I quickly pull myself together and try to think back on what had happened on that gruesome walk home, and all that I see is the sight of those claws pointing at my chest.

                I force myself to relax, although the pain medicine does most of the work, and my eyes slowly close for rest, and that’s when I hear it again.