With a guttural roar that split the night, the creature lunged.

  Its weight slammed into me like a falling tree. The forest floor cracked beneath our struggle, branches snapped, leaves exploded into the air. My back hit the ground hard breath knocked out, the bow skidding out of reach. And then I felt it its fingers, cold and gnarled, wrapping around my throat with merciless pressure. My lungs screamed. My vision trembled at the edges. I clawed at its arms, kicked wildly, but it was like trying to fight a nightmare made flesh.

  It leaned in close, its rancid breath curling against my skin like smoke.

  “You ran well,” it hissed, voice laced with something twisted, almost gleeful. “But it ends here, Hendrix.”

  The stars above swam. The night air grew heavier, thicker, like it was mourning me in advance. My thoughts blurred. My strength waned. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I saw Rex and Calix still running, still alive because I made them go. Because I stayed. And now....

  No. This couldn’t be it. Not like this.

  Then, just as the last flicker of strength in me began to fade, something shifted.

  The creature’s eyes widened. Its grip faltered. A tremble ran down its arms. It wasn’t me I hadn’t done anything. Something was happening inside it.

  “No…” it rasped, its voice suddenly strained. “Not now…”

  Its hand jerked back, shaking. Its body convulsed as if something inside it was… fighting.

  And then a voice not the creature’s, not the thing choking me... a woman’s voice, distant, broken, familiar.

  “Run…”

  The fingers loosened. Its eyes still monstrous glassed over.

  “I’m sorry,” the voice whispered again, warping through the creature’s throat. “Hendrix… my sweet boy… run. Please. I’m trying… I’m still here…”

  The words tore through me.

  “Mom…?” I gasped, barely audible.

  The thing above me trembled like it was being ripped in half. Its face twisted, lips pulled back in agony. It clutched its own head, snarling in a voice that didn’t belong to her.

  “No! Shut up! Stay down!”

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  But the woman’s voice pushed through again more desperate now, cracking with love and pain.

  “I love you all. I love you so much. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I couldn’t fight harder…”

  For a moment, I couldn’t breathe not from the grip, but from the weight of it. The realization. The truth behind this nightmare.

  My mother.

  Still somewhere inside this monster. Fighting.

  A sob caught in my chest. My heart shattered and roared all at once. She was saving me. Even now.

  I didn’t move. I couldn’t.

  Her claws had fallen away, but my body stayed frozen beneath her. Every instinct screamed for me to run but my soul, my soul, stayed anchored to the flicker of her that still remained inside the beast. Her voice… it was getting quieter. Drowning beneath the thing that had stolen her.

  She was losing.

  “I won’t leave you,” I whispered, voice trembling. “I can’t.”

  Her eyes those monstrous, glassy eyes flicked to mine, and for a heartbeat, they softened. Just barely. Just enough.

  That’s when I heard it footsteps.

  Crashing through the brush. Fast. Desperate.

  “Hendrix!”

  Rex burst into the clearing, wild-eyed, breath ragged, his face smeared with dirt and fear.

  He saw her. Saw it.

  And then he saw me on the ground, unmoving, tears streaming down my face like blood.

  Without hesitation, he grabbed my arm.

  “We have to go!” he shouted, voice cracking.

  I resisted. Yanked my arm back.

  “She’s still in there!” I screamed, throat raw, eyes locked on the trembling figure of the creature. “It’s Mom! She’s still fighting!”

  Her head snapped up, eyes wide with something feral something human.

  Her body trembled violently, knees buckling under the weight of some invisible war. Then, with a strangled, guttural cry, she turned and ran.

  Not aimless.

  Not monstrous.

  Deliberate.

  She crashed into the trees with the fury of a storm barely holding itself together. Branches shattered in her wake. Leaves scattered like a thousand forgotten memories. Her form twisted in the darkness part beast, part shadow, part mother and then she was gone.

  I lunged forward, hand outstretched. “Wait....!”

  Rex tackled me from behind. His arms wrapped around me like chains, his weight holding me down, keeping me from chasing the impossible.

  “No, Hendrix! No!” he shouted, voice raw. “She’s gone!”

  “She’s NOT!” I screamed. My throat burned. “She RAN! You saw her! That wasn’t the creature that was her!”

  “I know!” he sobbed, clutching me tighter. “God, I know! But she ran so we could live, Hendrix! You can’t go after her!”

  I struggled in his grip, my fists pounding at the dirt. “You didn’t hear her voice. You didn’t hear the way she said my name like she remembered me…”

  “I did,” he whispered. “I heard it too.”

  His tears fell hot against my back.

  “And that’s what’s breaking me.”

  My body crumbled. The fight drained from my limbs like the blood rushing out of an old wound. I collapsed into Rex’s arms, shaking, choking on every breath like it might be my last.

  “She’s still in there,” I murmured, barely more than a breath. “Our mom... she’s still in there.”

  “I believe you,” Rex whispered. “I believe you.”

  The woods had gone too still.

  The air was thick and strange, like the trees themselves had witnessed something sacred and tragic and now held their breath in mourning. Even the wind refused to speak. As everything turned dark.

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  First day of uploading tomorrow another 5 chapter thank you for reading. any critism is much appreciated

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