Still, the prickle never settles. She feels the needles pierce her skin. Sharp, steel needles. Needles stained with blood.

You’re stuck with it . . .

Her knees wobble beneath her hips and her stomach fills with thousands of centipedes. Her bladder weakens and she grows nauseous. She wants to kneel over and hurl, but a spike of adrenaline like a dormant flight instinct awakens through her system.

Without true rationality, she charges into a sprint.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” she cries, because she can sense it now. She can sense it approaching and she is not ready to face it again. She never will be.

She runs down the empty road like a wild animal hunted, her limbs flailing about. Only a few flickering streetlights shine down on her; otherwise, she is mostly hidden in the darkness. The yellow halos have all gone out. Her arms and legs pump desperately. She nearly trips from her uncontrolled speed.

“Fucking fuck! Someone fucking help me!” she screams, trying to get someone’s attention, anyone, but no answers come. Looming bystanders witness through the windows of their safe homes a crazy girl running from nothing.

But it’s not nothing. She knows it’s there behind her. She can feel it like she can feel the blood pumping through her veins.

Reluctantly, she looks back. The road is empty.

“Fuck!” she screams out one final time. Her body begs for rest, fighting with her emotions over the fact that no one is chasing her so she no longer needs to run.

But just because she can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there.

Her legs are about to give. She whimpers from exhaustion and turns down a dark alley, unwilling to rest, an easy target, in the middle of the open street.

She slows and spins, staring at the gaping lit entrance of the alley as she walks backward, deeper into the shadows.

It’s coming.

But nothing appears.

Her final step leads her into a wall. She stops and presses against it, taking a moment to catch her breath. As she exhales, the fog from her frozen breath obscures her vision of the entrance and she waves her hand to make it disperse. She wants to make sure she can see it when it comes.

And it always comes. One way or another, it comes and gets what it wants. Like how it used to come through that dark metal door all those years.

There’s a flutter against her spine. Her heart stops.

The wall she has crushed herself against begins to move.

She yelps and whips around.

A foot above her, two blue eyes glare through the darkness.

It’s here.

Her vocal cords freeze. She can feel her heart pick up speed in her chest. She takes a step back, but her foot lands in a pothole. Her ankle twists and she falls into a puddle. She’s disoriented but a hand clamps down around her neck, instantly yanking her back into focus. She is choking, her esophagus squeezed like a nearly empty tube of toothpaste. The hand lifts her off the ground, brings her to its raging blue eyes. She grabs the hand with her own and tries to pry the cold, dead fingers from her neck, but it’s too strong.