Adrenaline

With only moonlight to help me see, I kept my head down and dashed to the forest. The night should give me enough cover to flee my pursuers. The issue was that I had been sitting around the store doing nothing for the past month. Each step drained me more than the last. My breath turned unsteady, and I was on the verge of hyperventilating.

I dropped to my knees. The grass poked into my palms; the stimuli added to my blood pressure. My heart’s contractions rushed out to greet me. The wind carried shouts from the distance. The forest still looked to be so far away. And I was too paralyzed with fear to even glance behind me.

You can do it! Coyote’s words of encouragement broke through the storm of adrenaline-infused emotions that had been raging in my head. My thoughts could flow again. I inhaled a puff of the evening, invigorating and cleansing. My legs trembled from fatigue, but still I wobbled forward, one step after another. Try to move forward one step at a time. An unknown echo emerged in my head. It wasn’t in Coyote’s voice, but a message sent from the remote past, modified into suitable guidance for the present.

The imposing shadow cast by the trees got closer. I kept my gaze forward, knowing that, similar to Orpheus in the Underworld, my will would crumble if I looked back. I bit my lip so the pain could distract me from Coyote’s thoughts as she got captured and struggled to break free.

Then, her inner voice faded to silence. What happened to her? I could only hold back my queries and persist ahead. No matter what had happened, checking wouldn’t achieve anything but possibly deplete my motivation to carry on. Still, part of me wanted to know. The uncertainty was suffocating, and any sacrifice for a tiny glimpse of Coyote’s condition felt worth it.

The promise I made to Coyote rang in my head. I had to save her, but that wasn’t something I could currently do. I had to escape first and find a way to overpower the soldiers in the city. Pain was building in my chest, but I pushed onwards. Even though the shouting never grew louder, I dreaded the moment a force seized me from behind.

A tree met the palm of my hand and thus marked the finish line of my frenzied sprint. I had reached the threshold of the forest. The first thing I did was to turn around, but I couldn’t see anything of concern, not Coyote or any of the soldiers, only dreamy lights, presumably from lanterns, drifting afar.

I had the choice to seek help from the royal outpost, but the knights there probably wouldn’t trust the word of a random kid over the soldiers in the city. Also, Res might have brought the knights onto her side.

My blood slowed down since there wasn’t any immediate danger, and drowsiness had taken the opening to sneak up on me. I fumbled deeper into the forest, navigating around the barely visible trees that looked more like figures of looming monsters, until I settled on one that seemed to have a sturdy trunk.

The climb up the tree was effortless, as if I had done it many times before. Maybe this was the muscle memory I had inherited from Coyote. I really wanted this to be true, since it would mean my mental link to Coyote was still intact.

Ironically, although I had suffered through days of insomnia on an actual bed, it didn’t take me long to fall asleep on the rough wood. Maybe I had Lyla to thank for that. Compared to being tied to a branch, sleeping on one without ropes around me felt many times more comfortable.

…

A jolt and a slight pain in my shoulder snapped me out of my pleasant slumber. I had fallen to the ground, landing on my side. Greeting my wakefulness was Coyote’s voice snooping around in my mind, softer and sparser than before.

A gentle wave of calmness flowed into me. The worries and frustrations that were so important to me the day before so naturally dissolved away. The sunlight peeking through the canopy left a more pronounced warmth on my skin. All was well. There was no need to do anything, no need to move. I should just keep lying down in place.

The rustling of leaves caught my attention, though it took all my resolve to turn my neck. Nothing to see there. Why do I have to waste my energy? I should take it easy-

The bushes shook and parted to allow something to pass. With a thud, an invisible object had landed on my chest, pinning me to the ground. It wasn’t like I would get up anyway. Still, the pressure on me was getting uncomfortable. It wasn’t painful; I didn’t even feel the supposedly powerful impact in my chest that much. Why doesn’t it hurt? Where did my pain go? I quickly discarded the concerns, as I couldn’t be bothered to think about that.

The sensation of whatever it was on my chest was getting annoying. I wanted to get back to the baseline serenity I had felt when I woke up, so I reached out my right hand to grope around for the invisible object.

The next thing I saw was an outburst of blood. And an intense pain strangled my upper arm. It took me a moment to accept it, but my right arm was ripped clean off.

My eyes widened in disbelief. How could I even react to this situation? My body knew exactly how, and my heart rose to the occasion to pump blood at a quicker pace, which wasn’t a smart idea, because more blood spurted out from the open wound.

My detached arm landed next to my head. From the corner of my eye, I saw the meat on my arm being torn off by the unseen entity. I immediately looked away, but the image had already claimed its place in my mind. My stomach wriggled, a warning that I could vomit any second. My lungs also seized control of my throat as I hyperventilated nonstop.

My sight turned blurry, but my mind was finally clear; neither the shock nor the tranquility could control me anymore. What was I doing? Am I going to die like this? What happened to Coyote? I could only ask questions that had no answers.

Then, a shadow shot across the edge of my vision. The weight on my chest was lifted in an instant. And I heard a thump and a distressed growl.

What happened next was fuzzy. I was drifting in and out of consciousness. Someone was carrying me in her arms. All I could see was the outline of a red-haired girl. There were soft whispers of reassurance in my ear, but I couldn’t make out the exact words.