Eloise Roberts Hunted Rabbit

Oh God.

I am supposed to be at school by now. Maybe. What time even is it?

I really shouldn’t have left my sports watch on the bedside table. I could have sworn on Alice’s life that I was in bed a minute ago. My bed. My warm bed.

Oh God.

I can hear my raspy breathing, almost unrecognisable, the kind I have never heard from my own voice, if that is really what it was. Mum will be horrified when she finds out where I am.

I probably will be too. When I find that out.

The path that lies before me seems to dwindle and spiral uncontrollably into the far distance. I feel as though I am a lolling imp, face down, floating in the sea I know only too well, gasping for air as the fair scene of a faraway marine world proudly poses from miles ahead.

Oh God no.

In a painful jerk of reality, I realise I can’t see further than that tree, a dreadfully long metre ahead.

Oh, where am I?

I should be in maths by now, surely. Even Mr. Parkin would be looking for me. I can only beg and pray to the deathly-beautiful sunrise that he is. Ok, calm down.

Gather your thoughts now. Arrange them. That’s surely what Alice would do if she were in this wretched forest with me. I hope. Breathe, breathe.

Then, a noise. Stabbing right through my train of thought like a spiked bloodrose, I feel my tired and weary head fold upwards to soak in the unsettling evergreen setting. An animal. A deer. Surely. Please.

My blurred eyes catch a hooded figure as it flies across the cobbled road at blinding speed, across to the cluster of a towering oak. No, no.

At this moment in time, I couldn’t move a jelly-like trunk of a leg even if I wanted to. For the life of me, I cannot get rid of any irrational emotion, and the fear of the unknown drowns me whole.

The noise gets louder still. Twigs snapping, crunching through my broken mind beneath someone or something’s weighted steps. Louder still.

Someone help me. Begging and praying would be useless to me now. Anyone.

And so I only do the natural thing. I scream.

Flora Scott-Harden “Trapped”

I stood, hands in my mouth, trying to still my breath so as not to give myself away. In the corner of my eye I could see the three figures outlined against the moonlight. Concealed in the dark, trying to be silent, my heartbeat betrayed me, like the rapid pounding of a drum. It filled my head, pounding my skull. They must be able to hear it, so clear I could see in my mind’s eye the drummer beating so hard his arm was a blur. They were coming now, closer and closer, their heads almost blocking out the light. One tripped, hitting the floor by my feet. I lent hard against the wall as if it could swallow me, shield me, help me escape. One of them was coming to help his friend, the corner of his coat brushed my wrist; I held my breath as he walked on, kneeling over the ground. Rising with his friend, blood was trickling out his nose. The three wandered to the entrance with their bloodied companion and settled on the grass blocking my only escape. I wanted to run but, where.

George Webster “Shadow”

Turning around, I saw it. There it stood before me, looking into my soul. I was frozen to the spot as the terror coursed through my body. My nails were bleeding as I just realized I had bitten them to almost nothing, because of the pure terror taking over me. I felt like I was in a nightmare, as the shadow moved closer to me and closer until the silhouette began to fade and the being stepped out of the darkness. I knew it was the end.