Work Text:
Steve trips over a root.
He crashes to the ground, mud staining his clothes and leaving dark spots. ''Fuck!'', he curses, ''Fucking's Tommy and fuckings parties! Why didn't I just stay at home?''. That was a stupid thought, he already knows why. It's dark and it's lonely and he swears, sometimes he hears things that are not there.
Steve quickly rises up to his knees, heavy breaths rattling his lean frame. He's bleeding from several scratches, but weirdly enough he doesn't feel the pain. He doesn't feel anything. Empty. Numb.
It has to be the adrenaline. The fear of being found. There's a rustling sound from the bushes to his right, sending a jolt of fear through the brunette. He shoots up to his feet, sending droplets of blood flying everywhere. He sprints as fast as he can, ignoring the blood gushing out of his biggest wound, located just under his left knee.
The sound of one extra set of footsteps makes him sprint faster.
He feels like prey, getting hunted down by a hungry predator desperate to get a bite. The footsteps get closer. The fear quickly rises, and he pushes just a little more. He has to get away. He's running on sheer adrenaline now, sweat dripping from his temples and footsteps heavy. He has to fight for every single intake of breath, and his muscles ache for relief.
He can't run anymore.
He throws himself to the ground, pushing his way through grass and bushes to find a safe space. He settles down inside a bush, stomach pressed against the dirty ground. He is so tired, brown hair matted by sweat and plastered to his face, unlike his usual fluffy hairstyle.
Slowly, he regains his breath, lungs expanding with every intake. Suddenly, a blood-freezing scream tears through the woods. It sounds familiar, but Steve ignores it in favour of creeping deeper into the bush, the fear of getting found by the predator winning over his usual morals.
It goes quiet. Way to quiet for comfort.
The silence is gradually disappearing, giving space for the growing wind. The only sound he can hear, besides his own panicked breathing, is the wind gripping the trees and shaking them from side to side. Steve doesn't know how long he has been laying here. It could be minutes for all he knows, but that's impossible, because it feels like hours have passed by.
The sweat has dried and left him as an easy prey for the cold wind. The cold bites at his skin, and he starts shaking, teeth clattering. The sinister silence is cut off by incoming footsteps which are accompanied by quiet sniffles.
Someone is crying.
Steve lifts his upper body, supporting himself on trembling hands as he tries to look out over the bushes. Someone is coming out through the trees, and whoever it is, is crying so hard they have problems breathing. The person comes out on the pathway, out of the shadows and into the moonlight.
Steve quickly recognises the person. It's Heather, one of his closest friends, (maybe his only real one too, beside his best friend Robin. Thank God she had a test to study for). Probably the last one alive, if he doesn't count himself, out of the big group partying.
Heather is covered in mud from head to toe. Steve can't even see the colour of her hair, because it's covered by brown, dirty mud and sweat. There's something else coating it too, something dark and wet. Steve slowly raises his hand, is about to wave, trying to get the girl's attention, but Heather suddenly crashes to the ground and cries out in pain, tears falling freely like waterfalls down her chin.
Steve raises his gaze, and that's when he lays eyes on death itself. The thing that was hunting them. Slaughtered the whole group, as if they were headless chickens.
His hand falls back to the ground.
The dark silhouette slowly stalks closer, as if it has all the time in the world. The shadow takes its sweet time, but Heather doesn't have a chance at escaping its wrath. She tries her best to creep along the ground, sobbing out useless pleas of mercy. It's first then Steve notices the knife lodged in Heather's ankle. The shadow leans over her crawling form on the ground, whispering something in the crying girl's ear. Steve is too far away to hear what it's saying, but whatever it is must be horrific, because Heather's face is a mash of sheer terror as she cries harder than before.
The shadow wraps its hand around the knife and drags it out of her ankle. Steve slaps his hand over his mouth in disbelief. He should help her, he knows he should, but he just can't. He stays on the ground, watching with dread as the shadow lifts the knife, both hands around the shaft.
In a moment of curiosity, Steve finds himself studying it, and the shadow almost seems entertained, as if it’s simply playing. Like a cat having fun with its prey before delivering the final blow.
Steve clasps both hands over his eyes. He can't be witness to just another murder. Can't manage to watch another person get murdered by this dark creature. He can still hear Heather beg, but it makes no difference.
Her pleas are cut off by a horrific scream that rings through the trees like an echo. It's the same scream as earlier, which seems far away from now. Heather brutally stops screaming. Steve can't hear her any longer. The only sound he can focus on, is the disgusting sound of a knife blade pushing its way through muscles and scraping bones.
And then it's eerie quiet again.
Curiosity gets the best of him as Steve slowly removes his hands, trying to get a look at the scene in front of him. The first thing he notices is the lifeless body on the ground. ''O-omg'', Steve whispers, ''Holy fucking shit''. The nausea from earlier comes creeping back, from down in his stomach and up to his throat, where it settles down heavily. The shadow is standing over the corpse, watching the knife as if it is in a trance.
The knife is covered in a thick liquid. The liquid shines like silver in the moonlight where it slowly drips down the knife's blade, down the shaft and hits the grey skin of the shadow's hand.
The shadow suddenly snaps its head to the left, directly towards where Steve is hiding. It's inhuman how it's turning its head to look, and Steve swears he heard the sound of bones breaking. His pulse rises and he inhales sharply. Steve places his hand over his mouth to keep in any sounds fighting to come out.
He watches in terror as the shadow moves, stalking closer to his hiding place.
As if an unseen force pushes at him, Steve finds his eyes drawn to the shadow's. Its eyes are like two black holes, dark and lifeless. It doesn't even blink, just stares right ahead at him. It's like they're trying to lure him out from the darkness of the threes and into the moonlight on the path. Steve forces his eyes closed. He refuses to die, staring into the eyes of death.
He waits, though he's not sure what exactly he's waiting for. Perhaps, pain? The pain from the knife cutting through skin and muscles. The pain from the knife pushing along bones and through organs. The pain that Heather, and the rest of his 'friends' felt. He waits and waits, but nothing happens.
Confused, he slowly blinks open his eyes, but there's nothing there. Instead of two dark holes, there's just threes, upon threes upon threes. Steve looks around in confusion. The shadow is gone, the only proof that yes it did happen I'm not crazy, is the corpse lying face down in the moonlight.
He doesn't know how to react and stays where he is, studying the corpse from a safe distance. ''W-why didn't I help?'', he mutters, voice broken, ''What the fuck's wrong with me!?''. Memories from earlier blinks to the front of his mind. Memories he would like to stuff into a box and throw into the ocean, just too let it sink to the bottom of his consciousness, so he can forget.
Picture upon picture of faces, pale and lifeless. It's now he notices the wetness streaming down his face. The tears run down his chin and drips to the ground, where they mix with blood. His blood.
He gulps.
He's about to sit up when a hand lands on his shoulder. He freezes, blood turning to ice in his veins.
Slowly, he turns his head to the side, a glimpse of grey skin. The earlier cold penetrates through his clothes and settles into his bones. He should move, he knows he should. Curses at himself, ''Why the fuck aren't you running, idiot!?'', but his body won't listen. It's like it has gone in lockdown, all limbs frozen in place. The hairs at the back of his neck raises and shivers run down his spine as something breaths down his neck.
The breath isn't warm, like other living things, just cold puffs.
Lifeless.
The breath moves from his neck and up to his ear. It's voice is dark and raspy, and it reminds him off when you drag a fork against a glass plate as it mutters two single words; ''Found you''