I need to run. Run like the wind. Run like my own life depends on it. Because it does. Why did I think it'd be a good idea to take a stroll in the park at night? As if I never listen to the news. As if I don't know the things that happen here under the hushed veil of the night.

I'm being chased by a shadow I didn't have time to see clearly. It was a dark, hunched over figure. Something long shone through the night reflecting the poorly scattered lamp posts, dangling dangerously from the end of his left arm.

I turned around and started to run. Run, Nina. Run.

Leaving behind that shadow, and the shimmering thing in its hand. Leaving behind trees, and lamp posts, and the dark, and the night, and my own fear which is running after me and is quickly catching up. I glance behind over my shoulder to see if, lucky me, I left that behind. I don't see it, but I keep running, because there's no safety in this darkness. Run, Nina. Run.

"Eyes on the road, Nina." The advice dad always had, ready to shoot when he was teaching me how to drive. And once again I paid no heed to his words of wisdom, except this isn't a car I'm crashing, but my own feet stumbling on themselves, making me fall face first on the gravel path.

I don't really feel anything from that. I'm too busy letting the fear sip through my skin to feel the pebbles gnawing on my cheek, nailed to my palms, biting through my pants and bleeding my knees. I don't feel my legs giving on me, I don't feel the burn in my calves. I don't feel my lungs screaming for more air.

And to my left, I don't see the shadow, but I get a glimpse of that shimmering steel lurking through the trees.

I gasp, adrenaline forcing me to be on my feet again and running, no longer on the path but cutting through the trees to my right. My heart beats hard on my chest, hammering against my sternum, warning me as if I was too stupid to know I am in danger. Run, Nina. Run.

And so I do. I run with all I have, I run without stopping. Not even when the branches whip on my face leaving cuts I also don't feel. I run even when my legs say enough, because my blood is pumping so hard in my ears that I don't listen.

And I have to run harder, because what I do hear, is the stomping sound of feet that don't belong to me. Whoever is chasing me is getting close. And that's the first time I think about shouting for help. Except I'm the only one who's stupid enough to dare the lightless park during the night. Me, and my chaser. That doesn't stop me, though. Oh, no. I keep shouting because a sore throat sounds like a better deal than a dead one. I cry helplessly for help that will never come, the slightest hint of desperate hope wishing this was just a nightmare.

But the steel cutting through my flesh is too cold. It's too real.