Excerpt: Sane

The weather left a biting feeling, as though the wind was a thousand tiny mosquitoes, the chill a menthol burn left by mouthwash. There was not a flake of snow on the ground, but it seemed like a night where a flurry was eminent. The beginnings of icicles clung to the undersides of fat leaves, huddling together as they waited to freeze. Silence echoed through the trees, ripples darted across clear lakes. The night was still, but it would be a lie to call it peaceful.
Wild flailing, stumbling, stuttering—grace shattered in favor of speed, stealth lost with each crash through bushes, each broken branch. A gasp, a sob—the choked end of a scream hushed by rolling tears and shuddering hysterics. A shirt, tattered and torn, falling off in shreds though its wearer could not, would not, take the time to fix it. She ran through the otherwise perfect night, an eyesore akin to a bloodstain in the snow. Blood, in fact, dripped from shallow cuts across her porcelain skin, tiny droplets whizzing through the air to pool quietly in the bowls made by crackling leaves. Her right eye was swollen, lip bruised, teeth gritted, trying desperately to keep from screaming out in pain. It also prevented her from calling for help, but it was not probable that someone with good intentions would be able to hear her.
“I’ll get you, my pretty!”
A voice in the dark—not much more than a gravelly reminder of a pursuit, but it caused the woman to shake violently as she ran, her feet stumbling along as she nearly fell over. Each step was like a test of her balance, whether God would decide to have mercy on her, or let her plummet to the earth. Her breathing was as shallow as her wounds, lungs burning with similar intensity to the lashing whips of the blood coursing through her veins. She knew she couldn’t keep running for much longer, with bleeding feet and failing organs.
“I’m coming, Clarice.”
It was useless. There was no hint of strain in the voice, no labor, whereas she would barely be able to communicate an entire sentence.
“I have crossed oceans of time to find you.”
This was it, then—everything became blindingly clear in that instant. First, the woman realized that her toe had snagged against a tree branch, and that she was now tumbling impossibly, irrevocably, unfortunately forward. Second, she knew that once she was down, she wouldn’t be able to get back up. Not that she was mortally wounded from the fall, but her body simply lacked the fight to keep running. She was spent, and there was nothing she could do about that fact. In a last attempt that she knew would be futile, the woman began scrambling along the cold ground on all fours, fingers and toes grappling for purchase to propel her body forward.
A cold and calculating hand gripped her shoulder hard from behind, twisting sharply in an action that forced her body to flip onto her back. The woman shrieked as she flailed wildly backwards in an attempt to scoot her body away from the terror before her. The owner of the voice smiled, though it was exactly the opposite of comforting. Teeth and lips curved into a sadistic grin, one-sided to match the wink, as if to say this was all a joke, not serious at all. The woman tried to scream out, a last attempt, a dying attempt, but the voice choked it back with a hand at her throat, tightening its grip like the chill of winter against the healthy bark of a tree trunk.
The smile returned, wider this time, and the voice even chuckled softly.
“Here’s Johnny!”