(013)
Beneath the fear, there is a noise. He doesn’t hear it now, but it’s still there. The ragged breaths punctuating the darkness like horn stabs, or the feet thudding the earth in an irregular rhythm. The unrehearsed drumbeat and the out of breath singers, coughing and spluttering in haphazard pursuit. None of it is orchestrated. Pure, ridiculous chaos. But he doesn’t hear that. All he hears is run.
A glancing blow against an unseen tree sends him tumbling, fumbling for purchase in the pine needles and dirt. He rolls onto his back and covers his head with his arms in anticipation, but nothing comes. Amidst the ringing in his ears, the same command cuts through.
Run!
And so he does.
Blood throbs in his ears, down his face and in his eyes. His heartbeat is deafening. Blinding.
He whimpers involuntarily as he breathes, the word please slips out in a whine.
Careening through the trees and bushes with loud abandon, the thick shadow of night masks the ludicrous sight of him, but the noises smash violently against the silence. That is except to him, or to those behind him. They are encased within a globule of fear and adrenaline. The world reduced to a single high pitched tone.
However, the cinematic experience in his mind isn’t shared in reality. So perhaps it is unsurprising then, that the crescendo comes too early.
He crosses a path and steps into nothing, coming crashing to the ground on his side. He wheezes, his lungs seizing and cramping, unable to breathe. He rolls onto his front, gargling the dry white froth in his throat. Short gasps, not enough to stand. He crawls forwards, towards the water. Please. He begs. Please.
He still can’t hear them. The sounds of pounding footsteps and exasperated sighs. The simple, functional thud of the first fist that breaks his cheekbone. His lungs are screaming, fighting for air, his body in shock. He shields his face. Someone’s foot breaks two ribs. Nowhere to hide. The blows fall like heavy rain into thickening mud. Febrile static buzzes in all of their brains simultaneously. No-one hears the inglorious gurgle that his throat makes as someone stamps on his face with both feet, crushing his nose and flooding his windpipe. They only stop when he goes limp.
It’s in the echoes of his dwindling consciousness that he finally hears it. Their heavy feet trampling the earth as they run from him, rhythmless and uncoordinated. His breath catching in his throat as his body convulses, and in his last waking moments, laying on his back under a tree by the water’s edge, the sound of bloody bubbles bursting in his mouth.
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