■ 
There was this time when I fell, in the woods, in the dark, and the world dropped in on me, pressing in a way which felt like an end. I had been with the others, but now I was alone. It was instant and primal. I was lost in the woods at night and something was hunting me. I collapsed on the ground with my hands in the frozen pine needles, wheezing out a plume of steam, eyes wide. I turned until I was on all fours like a crab, terrified.
Something was coming.
My view was a gap between thin, tall tress with a spray of ferns between them, and a wall of black beyond that. Then the blackness moved. Something like liquid shadow wrapped around a tree trunk and gave it a casual tug, popping it in half like someone snapping a popsicle stick. It sounded like a celery stick amplified a million times and transmitted through the ground until it resonated in my teeth.
I sat still, breath caught in my throat, unable to move.
Then he was there, grabbing me by the jacket, yanking me up so hard it ripped and sprayed feathers everywhere, pulling me away from the shadow just as it let loose a burbling, glottal chunk of consonants, like an instrument formed by human vocal chords exploring its range. Near the end of the gibberish it said:
“…thegatethegateithungersatthegatesubmit…”
Something was coming.
My view was a gap between thin, tall tress with a spray of ferns between them, and a wall of black beyond that. Then the blackness moved. Something like liquid shadow wrapped around a tree trunk and gave it a casual tug, popping it in half like someone snapping a popsicle stick. It sounded like a celery stick amplified a million times and transmitted through the ground until it resonated in my teeth.
I sat still, breath caught in my throat, unable to move.
Then he was there, grabbing me by the jacket, yanking me up so hard it ripped and sprayed feathers everywhere, pulling me away from the shadow just as it let loose a burbling, glottal chunk of consonants, like an instrument formed by human vocal chords exploring its range. Near the end of the gibberish it said:
“…thegatethegateithungersatthegatesubmit…”
