It runs alongside me, keeping pace, like a second shadow that even the high-noon cannot erase. I feel hunted, and that alone makes me uncomfortable. I am not the prey for fuck's sake, I'm the predator.
Then why are you running?
It's all I seem to remember how to do.
My hooves have split and cracked and my legs are a mess of bloody patches. Like a machine I have only one goal in mind and anything else that interferes is an obstacle to over come, including the limitations of my parts. If I fall then I crawl until I can get back up again. I've dislocated my left knee. I still run, now it just flings out oddly every time I lurch forward with my stride. I've buckled on it a few times, so my shoulder is awash with debris and the ruin of my skin.
It doesn't matter, I can only run. I must run.
The panic that has blossomed in my chest scampers up my throat like a rabid squirrel, clawing and kicking until I choke on it. I can't breathe. I can't stay upright, or straight, I head sideways more often than forward the past mile or so. I stagger, I scream, but I continue, I must.
Yet I can't.
I collapse at the rim of the Heart. My coat washes red with the fire that dances along the edge. I wonder if I should just roll myself into the pit, it must be better than this, better than losing my child - the one precious thing in my life now that my godking has gone. I want to cry, but I'm afraid I don't know how. How miserable.
It's then, from my sideways view, that I notice a body vanish in the grass. Not soon after, another. I lift my head up, but my view stays sideways, it comforts me. There's something there, isn't there?
I stand. I don't know how long it took me, but it feels like forever.
I waver, dragging myself on three legs, two legs, one leg.
No more legs, but I'm inside. The cave has engulfed me, like a child crawling back into her mother's womb. Was it this painful coming out? I can't remember...
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