My crippling, intolerable pains left me weak kneed and unwilling. I moved slow and rather ruggedly, dragging my weight (or what little I had) along with me. I brought by my side an infectious smell of unclean wounds and rot, like spoiled meat left in the sun for months too long. Sameira trails behind, her worries for my health and safety numerous, overloading my own thoughts with hers. She brings me meats and assorted grasses, still convinced that eating raw flesh will bring me to health. But with my unhygienic stench constantly clinging to my nostrils, I find my appetite fleeing for the hills. 

"When was the last you ate?" I don't recall, but that's okay. I can manage another few days without it I'm sure, I just need to find food that looks appealing. Where we are now, somewhere in the darkness of the forest, provides nothing but coarse grasses and sparse bushes. My stomach clenches as a reminder that I was hungry, merely ignoring it for the sake of pushing on rather lazily. I had no destination, I was simply walking with the intent on finding something (anything). My purpose was lost to me, but I suppose somewhere in the back of this plagued head of mine I was just hoping praying that I'd find Sikeax. Together we'd then roam with our doubts and insecurities lost on the path behind us. 

Too fucking bad that's not how life works. 

I'm slow and weak, vulnerable to attack. I feel Sameira tense, her ears swiveling and large head swinging round. Her vicious snapping sends shivers down my spine, knowing that when she freaks out like this there must be something out there. Unlike me, Sameira does not spook easily, the rustling bushes and dancing shadows do not move her at all. My own panic seems to barely push at her mind, leaving her courageous and sometimes oblivious to the dark demons I see waltzing beneath the moonlight. 

"Someone behind us!" Her growls intensify and fire flickers along her markings, brows narrowing as she fully turns her body to face whomever lurks behind us. I stiffen up as hoof steps (a familiar gait— it's Them) echo through my perked ears, amber eyes wide. I panic, seeing a flash of It's greedy grin before I launch myself deeper into the forest. I feel my right shoulder collide with a tree in my sloppy get away, a battle cry ripping from the throat of my attacker and sending my mind whirling. Sameira stays behind to try and burn the oncoming stranger, flames licking her figure as she sends her fiery magic towards my attacker. 

I feel my hoof catch, my body flung into the air. For a moment I'm suspended, all hooves off the ground, my figure tearing through various bushes as I finally collide into the ground. I'm left gasping as my chest begins its ritual of secreting discoloured fluid, feeling the warm concoction seeping down my breast. The wounds itch and sting, intense throbbing and unsettling pains leaving me wriggling on the ground while my infection spreads. 

My pursuer catches up, blocking my one and only exit with her body. Sameira is left to howl and whine behind her, aggravated and upset. Despite something sickening within me that whispers, taunts, feeding me immoral ideas that Sameira could carry out, I tell her to sit. She responds to the order well enough, worry still plastered to her canine features. My eyes refocus on the warrior at hand, my breathing rugged as I take her in. My mind snaps like brittle bone, crumbling in the palms of the Skinwalker as a sickening cackle brings back unwanted memories. Leave me alone, leave me alone! They dance behind her, twisted grin hidden beneath my dam's hide, wicked eyes lingering over my trembling frame. Pathetic, pathetic. 

I'm being interrogated, this mare's question rocketing towards me like a bullet, sick and sharp. I look at her, dumbfounded. I hadn't laid my hooves on anybody. I didn't do anything! I was innocent and here she was trying to play me like a fool. I wasn't going to confess to something I'd never done, my lips crashing together and teeth chattering. "I-I didn't," my attempt at hiding my obvious fear was no use. I was afraid. I review everything that I can think of, every unexpected incident and— oh. 

I had blacked out for a fleeting moment months ago, my mind reeling with overwhelming anxieties that left me trembling and sobbing. The nightmare I awoke from opened my eyes to a world of destruction, fears bursting forward with eager jaws snapping and desperate, hungry gazes locked on me. I drag myself into the deep end of a pool of paranoia, my lungs giving way to panic. I woke up in a different place, spattered with blood and deep wounds in my chest. But everything that happened when I'd blacked out was lost to me, there's but a second where I remember feeling (flesh?) tearing, bones crunching, and— gold.