(3) Fear

Running. Got to keep running.

Fear. It's around every corner. Every branch. Every leaf. No safe haven.

A branch lashes her in the face. She's on her back. Now she's running again. Fear.

Darkness. It's everywhere. It envelops the world. It used to be a safe blanket of comfort. Now it is the opposite.

Heart pounding. Breathless. Need rest. Need sleep. No rest. No sleep.

Can't stop.

Must. Keep. Running.

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The forest was overcome by darkness now, with flecks of green fel being the only kind of light in these forests. No longer was it a place of comfort and happiness where there animals would rummage, doing their daily work in happiness. Now, only creatures from the darkest reaches of the twisting nether stalked these forests, corrupting them and twisting it as they moved through the woods silently. However, they were not the only creatures in the forest. A young elf, Rhia, was also sprinting through. However, she was being followed.

Three fel hounds were on her trail. The Kal'dorei priestess that had tried to save her had fallen at the hands of the demons, and they were now on her trail. For hours now she had run in fear, always glancing back to see an eye staring strait back at her, or a devilish grin from between some branches of a bush. For hours she had fled in terror, but her body was exhausted by now. She stumbled once again, landing on her face. She tried to get up, but collapsed back into the mud.

A voidwalker emerged from the shadows, closely followed by a pair of felhounds that were eager to feed upon her life essence. The voidwalker laughed, knowing that he had some easy prey to inflict pain upon. A wrathguard now materialized from the shadows, laughing with the voidwalker as he spotted the elf on the floor. The felhounds were in a buzz now, the third one joining them as they ran around the elf, taunting her and trying to goad her back onto her feet.

A tear welled up in the elfs eye. Try as she might, she couldn't get back onto her feet to fight the demons. She would die here, in a place that she no longer new, with the knowledge that she had failed to save herself and her family. She let out a sigh as one of the felhounds advanced. The stench of the creature and the knowledge of her failure drove her to push forward. Her body screamed out, too tired to move, but her mind was the greater power here. She would push on, no matter what.

Gripping her weapons tightly, she swung her dagger upwards whilst forcing her aching body to roll to the left. Luck was on her side, and the dagger slammed into the demons throat and into it's windpipe, killing it almost instantaneously. It collapsed onto the floor as the other two pounced. One was forced back by with the sword, but the other one latched onto her leg with it's teeth. She screamed out in pain, lunging at it with both weapons, opening up two small and minor wounds in it's side.

It retreated back to the voidwalker, who in turn advanced towards the elf who had pushed herself weakly up onto her feet. She swung wildly with her sword, catching the voidwalkers chest, who in turn lunged forward with his hand in an attempt to inflict pain upon the elf. In her weakened state she dodged, and lunged forward with her dagger, just managing to hit the creatures core and killing it with the price of being caught in the shoulder by his final and desperate lunge. She screamed out in pain once again. The touch of a voidwalker was painful, more painful than anything that she had felt before.

She raised her sword just in time to parry a blow from the wrathguards two handed axe, but in doing so she felt a massive shudder of pain ricochet through her arm. In desperation, she lunged forward with her dagger, but she was only successful in opening a minor wound in his shoulder. He still roared in pain however, giving shadow enough time to swing her sword around and sever his arm from his torso. However, she couldn't do any more damage as the pair of weakened fel hounds were upon her.

She managed to quickly kill them after a quick scuffle, earning Shadow many wounds across her body. She turned to face the one armed wrathguard again, who swung his axe around in an attempt to decapitate the elf, who ducked under the blow, bobbing back up to stab him through his jaw and into his skull with her dagger. He collapsed onto his back once she removed the dagger, quickly spasming once before lying still. The young elf collapsed down onto one knee, before hitting the floor hard and falling unconscious from exhaustion. In her last final thoughts of that day, she thought only of fear.