She wasn’t alone.

The thick vegetation wrapped around Lillian’s ankles as she trudged through the forest, skin dewy from the humid air and hair sticking to her sweaty forehead.

What had started as her usual afternoon walk turned into what was surely her last day on Earth, after she’d unknowingly wandered off the path.

Around her, trees where thick, vines spiralling up the dead trunks and penetrating the darkening sky. The sun was setting, seemingly working against time to sink faster than the seconds should allow, and flicking the clock hours faster and faster with each brush of the wind.

The final slivers of sun where pooling through the canopy of trees, its original blanket of warmth morphing into an ice-bath. Instead, shards of moonlight peaked through the leaves above her head, casting menacing shadows against the floor.

Wind tickles her arms, raising goosebumps, and causing her hair to tangle around her throat, as though it was strangling her.

Raising her hands to rip those strands of hair away, she stopped abruptly, feeling a sense of paranoia tingle up her spine and causing a prickling sensation in her fingertips.

Then she heard it. A whisper.

It was cold and husky, like a polar bear rising from their hibernation. It trickled into the looming night, swirling around the leaves of trees and dispersing like a ripple of water around a pebble. She was the pebble.

Her eyes squeezed shut, as though trying to block out any more unwanted noises, but they opened again quickly the second she realised that it might in fact be a good idea to watch her back as it was getting late.

She knew that there where dangerous animals in this forest: bears, foxes, poisonous snakes, but what she didn’t know is that there where forces much stronger, much more undefeatable, things that even the top apex predators feared.

Lillian knew that she had to keep walking, had to force her aching limbs to take her somewhere safer, somewhere she could hide out for the night.

There she saw it: a tree taller than the others, its canopy of leaves glowing slightly in the moonlight, and its roots buried deep below her feet, twisting sharply into the Earth. And there, at the base of the trunk, was a small hollow, just large enough for a human to fit inside.

She marched quickly and quietly towards the tree, before curling her knees to her chin and wrapping her arms around her shins. Lillian made herself small, unnoticeable, and eerily still, as if one movement would awake the monsters she sees in her nightmares.

But monsters weren’t real. Everyone knew that. Comforted by the knowledge that her fear was in her head, and she would be safe in this hole, Lillian squeezed her eyes shut and took a few calming breaths. Little by little, she released the growing tension in her muscles, shaking out her arms, massaging her legs, and twisting her wrists in small, circular motions.

Her fatigue from the day was catching up, Lillian’s eyelids fluttering shut despite her ministrations to keep them open. She was feeling calmer, safer, but she knew that any sign of weakness – or sleep, in the matter – could make her a target for other vicious animals. She had to stay alert.

Just a few minutes, she told herself. A few minutes to rest my eyes, and then I will… then I will go… then I will… I will… I…

She drifted to sleep, her senses relaxing and racing brain settling into a soft background hum in her mind.

……………………………………………………………

The wind was blowing hard enough to move boulders, rain bucketing down from the raven-coloured sky.

White beams of lightning shot down from the sky, shattering the earth as thunder rumbled and echoed throughout the night. Trees swayed, so close to their skyward branches falling back to Earth.

As the wind howled around her ears and rain soaked through her thin, cotton, not-warm-at-all shirt, Lillian awoke with a start.

Her eyes widened with fear as she shuffled as far into the hollow as she could, pressing her back against it as she tucked her knees further into her chest.

Goosebumps erupted along her arms and legs, hair standing on end, the cool air pinching at her skin and burning her throat.

What she saw next haunted her for life… or it would have if she’d actually survived.

The moonlight was still shining strongly, yet its beams seemed even more powerful. They seemed to wrap around the shadows from the trees, hugging them in a tight embrace and causing them to dance.

The shadows where dancing.

They didn’t stand, didn’t speak, didn’t even look, but they were certainty moving. Not in time with the swaying trees, but slowly inching their way to Lillian’s safe haven.

As the shadows crept closer, Lillian felt as though every inch of happiness and calm, every good emotion or good memory she ever had got sucked out of her into the void that was those creepy shadows.

Instead, they where replaced with an exponential sense of dread and fear, as though her very soul knew she was in grave danger.

And then she heard it again. It was as though the shadows where whispering to her, speaking incomprehensible threats. Her skin was crawling, eyes watering with tears that where refusing to shed.

She wanted to scream, shout, cry into the night in hopes someone would hear, but the words caught on her tongue and turned sour.

Each breath became heavier, more strained, and it felt as though invisible hands where constricting her throat and cutting off her airway. In the desperate attempt to breath, she gasped deep breaths, on what seemed to be the edge of a panic attack, but all it did was breath in thick smoke that tangled in her lungs and tasted bitter on her lips.

Then she felt it on her skin, too. The closer they got, the more agonising simply existing became, every inch of her scorching flesh encapsulating what it must feel like to burn in hell.

The sky that was once a charcoal black was slowly morphing into something shy of blood-red, staining her eyes and causing her heart to thump uncontrollably in her chest.

Though they didn’t have arms, the shadows seemed to grip her, strangling her, tearing her skin into pieces.

Finally, a scream escaped her mouth, and it was like nothing she’d ever heard before. It was raw, and filled with undeniable agony. And yet, it was underwhelming compared to the burning ashes she felt beneath her skin.

The rain was still falling, but it did little to soothe the agony she felt destroying her from the inside out, instead evaporating on her skin and creating a haze in front of her eyes that only added to the haunting scene in front of her.

In Lillian’s daze, she didn’t notice the rising of the sun, how the Halloween-Esque red sky morphed into the usual, natural purple, then orange, then yellow, before the first hints of light blue hinted at the edge of the horizon.

But it was too late. As the sun ate the shadows one by one, Lillian was left in the small hollow in the big tree, teeth bared with pain, body shaking with fear, and wounds bleeding out into the mud.