...

Deep bellows echoed from far within the darkness behind, much to the similarities of a siren or alarm being set off to signal a lockdown.

Closer, and closer, they grew.

Rusted metal doors forcefully being slammed into walls, tipped over and decaying benches effortlessly kicked across the hallway.

Stronger, and much faster, already covering half the ground in the time I had taken to do a quarter.

Through the quick, consistent pace of my barefoot steps, it calls in incoherent sentences.

"Strigoi! Patru! Strigoi! Patru!" The only recognisable words, the ones that are used to refer to me.

The names he had given me.

The air grows colder, it's so cold.

This is the furthest I have ever made it, the outside is close, but so are the monstrous sounds, not so willing to let its creation free.

Nearer, the end of the hallway drew. A decrepit, double door stood tall just out of reach, without the slightest chance of being unlocked.

Disgusting, stale breaths tickled the back of my neck, inspiring faster movements than I thought physically possible in myself.

In an instant, I swerve to the left, avoiding the door entirely.

A new objective, the partially boarded up window.

From behind, a thunderous crack shakes and rattles the already unstable plank in the wall, missing my cue to turn.

The window approaches, the beautiful, night sky shyly illuminating the revolting floor. I aim in between two horizontal boards.

Jumping toward the barely large enough gap, long nails glazed over the tips of my toes in a final but desperate attempt to drag its pet back into the depths.

The thin glass shatters, shards pierce all over my half bare body as I crumble onto the overgrown grass.

"No!"

A long, gray arm reaches out from the pitch black, clawing at the deteriorating wood as it's too big to follow.

Standing up, before he has any possible chance of deciding to break down the door, I turn around and run.

Through the many trees and far, far down the road, are lights.

I'm free.

...