The sound of snapping twigs stalked him as he fled, along with the harsh, ragged breathing that comes with over-exertion. His sides ached with exhaustion, but the overpowering dread of being caught kept his limbs working like mindless machines.

After what seemed like an eternity of crashing through endless foliage, he finally gave in to the desperation of his pleading muscles and collapsed. He pleaded for himself to stay quiet while gasping for air. He tried listening out for whoever was following him, but the only sound was the pounding of his heart in his ears. The crunch of dead leaves and sticks no longer followed him.

Did he lose them?

He desperately tried to calm his racing mind and wished for that to be the case. He sat up to scan the landscape.

He felt heat produce from the tip of his ear, followed by a sharp stinging sensation and hot liquid dripping down his cheek. Blood. He turned his head to look at the forest ground beneath him and saw a hole – a bullet hole - in the dirt. It didn’t take long for him to figure out that whoever was chasing him had guns. He hadn’t even registered the sound, if there had been any.

Fear consumed his every cell. He desperately scrambled to his feet, trying to keep his balance on weak muscles. His movement couldn’t be described as running anymore; it was more like blindly stumbling over logs and through branches.

He was crashing through the woods once more, this time pursued by a relentless stampede of bullets. Where were they coming from? Shots fired left and right of his head, skimming through his clothes just millimetres from flesh. The scary part was the fact that there were no sounds following him, as if the air were producing the bullets.

A breath-taking pain that he had never experienced before exploded in his calf. An involuntary cry ripped itself from his throat before he could stop it, letting his pursuers know they hit home. The staggering pain made his vision swim and dulled his senses until nothing was left of the world he knew.