Hedge Maze 2

“No!” She shrieks, fear and frustration bleeding into her voice. She grits her teeth together hard, molars grinding with a sickening groan as she fights against her own blind panic.

The frigid air biting at her neck makes it clear she doesn’t have time to try again. 

Stupid, useless girl, a familiar voice in her head reprimands. 

She fists the key as she spins frantically, facing the void as it closes in on her. Its arm is already poised to strike, blade ready and vicious, hungry for another taste of innocent blood. She throws herself backwards, shoulder connecting with the edge of the door frame as she careens off to the side. She doesn't fall -thank god- but her retreat isn't coordinated. The knife nicks the same edge she's bounced off of a fraction afterwards, a hairsbreadth away from plunging through her shoulder.

Wood splinters, flaking offer in errant fragments. The figure stumbles forward with an oddly watery flow, following the momentum of its swing heavily. She takes another large step back, two, three, trying to move away without letting it out of her sight. The void recovers quickly, flows upright like a tide preparing to crash once more. She doesn't want to be the shore it lands on.

The man shaped thing is too close to the door for her to make a second try just yet, so reluctantly she falls back. The shadow stalks her, clinging to her like a bad stain no matter how she moves. It feels like it can anticipate her steps, a funhouse mirror of her own actions. The void no longer seems interested in closing the space between them -not immediately, at least. Its motivations have evolved from punishment to play. Toying with her like this House. A cat batting a mouse because it can.

She needs to get through that door -she refuses to think about it being false, refuses to entertain any possibility where this won’t take her away from here, now- but the entity is making that reality much harder to grasp. Slippery hold, growing more slick with each taunting advance. Her gaze flicks to her surroundings quickly, only looking away long enough to ascertain her options.

A large topiary rabbit sits to her left, poised mid leap, charming brilliance at odds with the tension in the air. She’s near enough that she could feasibly sprint behind it -and then what? Hiding isn’t possible here, nor is it advisable. The silhouette is fast, sharp, determined. Cowering behind the bush would do nothing for her other than add a possible minute or two to her already dwindling time. She can't afford to stall.

To her right are various holes in the hedge. Openings leading back into the twists and turns of the maze. She doesn’t have the energy to run anymore, not long term at least, and if she risks reinterring the labyrinth she is inviting in too many variable. Too many opportunities to falter, slip up, be overcome by circumstance or design. She doesn’t want to be a rat trapped in a maze any longer, reward waiting somewhere out of reach. Besides, her prize sits before her, the door waiting to let her through. Why should she turn away from that?

The decision is made in a snap, her thoughts shifting, sliding into an order she’s not previously considered. She isn't sure where the idea comes from, where the spark of it originates, but it's a plan nonetheless. Something that could work if she doesn't second guess herself. The muscles in her legs tense, coiling tight as she stares at the void. Between one second and the other she’s moving, running with the last of her ability, towards the shadow.

There is no surprise, or shock, or stillness on the dark silhouette. There is nothing as she barrels into its body. She expects to hit a solid mass, topple the figure to the ground, stunning it if it can indeed be stunned. Instead, she runs through. Inky smoke clings to her as she passes through ice, her body temperature plunging dangerously low. She emerges on the other side of the being, skin pricked with goosebumps, lips blue as tremors wrack her body.

Violated. She feels violated. Whispers of the darkness leach into her clothes, her pores, finding their way inside her. She doesn’t stop running despite the shock, doesn’t dare question this unexpected outcome even though she feels sick enough to puke. Her hand shakes minimally as she reaches the door again, colour coming back into her cheeks as she slips the key in the lock and turns.

She doesn’t feel the cold this time -her own temperature still low- misses the warning of the oncoming assault. The bright bite of the blade sinks through her back before it drills into the soft wood of the door. She hears the dull impact before she feels the knife inside her.

Howling is an understatement to the sound that rips clean from her chest. The agony is pulled from her, clawed from her breast, up her neck, and out her mouth where it explodes. Her vision sparks, spots bursting across her eyes in static sparkles. Pain blossoms once more as the weapon is pulled free, a wet suck as it exits her body. She gasps, pulling in air as she sways with the force of the removal.

Adrenaline is still fueling her body, keeping her afloat as her sight attempts to abandon her at the second wave of nauseating torment. She knows the knife is coming again, knows this was just the first of many attacks to come. Turning, she faces her assailant, eyes locking on the raised arm wielding the knife.

She reaches up with her uninjured arm, her hand plunging into the cold vortex of the void’s. Her fingers clamp around the hilt of the blade, somehow overriding the entity’s grip. The knife comes free, and she adjusts her hold instinctually before sinking it into the shadow’s chest.

She assumes the blade will slip through the smoke just as she did, a vain attempt at protecting herself. Useless and futile. What happens is much different: The knife strikes true, sinking into the sudden heft of skin and muscle and bone, cracking through the sternum until it finds its home amongst the softer, valuable insides.

There is no blood. No forthcoming expulsion. The entity merely stops. Goes still. Dead, or merely stunned? She doesn’t bother to find out which, the difference inconsequential to her current urgency. She releases the knife so she can grab the doorknob behind her and twists, the handle obliging as the door swings inwards.