The Only Footprints

The still air of the forest whistled past her ears, screaming “faster, faster!” A branch snapped under her skinned knees as she stumbled and fell. Her mind moving even faster than her feet, she couldn’t pay enough attention to both. All she could do was run and try to keep breathing. Her heart beat like a hummingbird’s wings; her eyes were wild, as if there was a monster behind her. But there was nothing behind her; she left nothing but a broken branch in her wake. Flashes of green and brown sped by like a high-speed train, and scratched her face and her bare arms. Still she ran. Suddenly, a small abandoned shack appeared in the distance. One set of bare footprints walked to it through the mud, and her own footprints followed them in. What she saw inside the shack we may never know. But in an instant she was running once again, as the trees absorbed a scream that no one ever heard. And the only footprints leading to the shack were hers.