Without warning, he releases me and I heave as I suck air back into my lungs. My head rushes with the lack of oxygen, fear and a pumping arousal that has my knees going weak.
But I obey.
I gather up my skirts and I bolt. I dart through the trees. Feet thundering against miles of uneven forest. Part of me is partially relieved there are no bushes. No rocks or roots. The ground is a rolling valley of grass and dense trees.
But I’m in silver.
A beacon in the shadows.
A pathetic rabbit running from a demiurge.
Jesus, I’m trying to outrun a demiurge.
The giggle nearly bubbles past my lips, but I swallow it down as I spin around a cluster of trees and loop in the opposite direction.
It’s unnatural how still everything is. How silent. The entire expanse of space goes on forever, never changing, but...
Something rustles on my left.
Close.
I feel the punch of air slam into my side.
I scream without thinking and whirl to find nothing.
Heart pounding, I scramble back, head whipping from side to side. Eyes scanning.
A tug on my hair.
I spin, expecting him to be there, but...
“No fair,” I pant. “I can’t turn invisible.”
His low, husky chuckle brushes my right ear.“Not invisible. I am everywhere.”I spin. Nothing.“I am the trees.”My left ear. Spin. Nothing.“I am the ground. The flowers.”
I’m spinning and whirling, and his voice keeps whispering in my ear, and I’m getting dizzy and disoriented.
“I am a demiurge, my love.”He’s everywhere. All around me. swirling and tangling through my sanity.“You can’t escape me.”
Laughing hysterically, I push deeper into the wild, yelling over my shoulder, “Come and get me then.”
I hear his chuckle whisper through the wind as it whips past my ear.
It momentarily surprises me that I’m not out of breath. I’m slightly winded. I feel the burn and tightening in my lungs, the stitch in my side, but I’m not tired. My limbs aren’t begging to stop. I could run forever it feels like, and I wonder if that’s what happens when you have no body to exhaust. It also brings to mind the fact that I have not eaten or had anything to drink. I do sleep. I do know that. But all the little things that keep humans going don’t seem to apply.
Thoughts for later, I tell myself as I push through a cluster of trees straight into something else.
Darker. Thicker.
The woods here are bent and twisted. They huddle together as if in fear. Shrouded by a thick column of fog that rises from a ground choked with foliage. The air is wet. Soggy, yet suffocating. Insects chirp from amongst the giant leaves dripping with condensation.
I hazard a step. Then another.
Something slithers through the brush. Something long and thick. And black.
Shahmaran.
Terror winds around my esophagus as I search the heavy wisps of smoke. My fingers tighten in my skirt as I edge away. Careful not to make a sound.
