Death Is My Frenemy (Book Three)

Chapter 1: The Chase

:D Please vote and leave feedback because this is my Watty Awards 2012 entry! I have a concussion and I wasn't suppose to write, or go on anything electronical for the matter, but I wrote this because I love you guys, so hopefully I don't die before I see the responses. That would be very ironic... Haha! Watch the trailer to the right. NOW.

xxxx :)))))))

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It was entirely irrefutable that the enemy was not in the slightest content.

Maybe it was the quick drop of the temperature in the air as I ran through the twisting forest on quick toes, or possibly the stilled presence of the freezing wind against my cheeks--that had suddenly gone limp, as if an incoming hurricane was in the midst.

It was true, the assortment of evergreen trees and fall-kissed maple trees that situated themselves firmly in front of me had grown utterly still, my surrounding oxygen had become freezing, enough to craft my breath so that it was visible, and the brawny wind that had been marked on the forecast had become wilted, vanished.

The sensation continued to linger.

It had to be the fact that the supernatural creature I had spotted from a mere shadow on the ground, insisting that something was flying beyond me, had twitched slightly as it glided. In fact, while I was adventuring through the low branches and twig of the forest, they had swiftly clamped their dark wings together, allowing themselves to free-fall a probable sixty feet down to the earth.

I heard the sound of something heavy dropping to the ground behind me and on impulse I turned as I ran, looking over my shoulder. There was nothing or nobody behind me. The trail following my running form was of decaying autumn leaves, touched only by my own two feet along the ground. The damp, rain-quenched soil imprinted with my running shoes and not the outsized footprint of a man. There was no renascence of any betraying, shadowy, deceivingly-dark characters; no dark cloak following close behind.

Look again.

The voice was so unexpected, really, that I stopped in my tracks, breath pulsing as rapid out between my cold-kissed lips, as my heart was dancing rhythmically in my chest. I faced the area behind me where I had spotted not one token of movement. My eyes narrowed, then squinted at the forest before me: the everlasting trail of woods that lead to my house, my family.

Again, nobody was there. For a fraction of a second, that is.

My breath was like spikes against my throat when he appeared. His tall, muscular frame stood suddenly thirty feet away, hugged tightly with some sort of thin body suit. His face was barely shadowed with what appeared to be a smaller version of his typical draping hood. I had concluded almost instantly that the shape of the outfit was designed for better movement, better flight. The material outlined the thick contort lines of his muscles and abdominals, making him seem even more animalistic, inhuman. It harmonized unerringly with the sinister dark tone of Death's cloak.

Whether he had appeared, or had been there all along I--ironically couldn't comprehend at that moment. But then again, simply breathing was too easy to comprehend at that time either.

I blinked once. He had somehow gained another ten feet closer to me. His head was entirely covered with the hugging material. It was strange to see the outline of his skull tilt to the side as I gasped softly. I refused to commit the small action again.

A sound escaped his mouth as well. Using two word for description, it was purely a daunting hiss.

I didn't know whether to move or run. The cross situated at my side, hidden behind my arm. I tucked it behind my back, under the waist of my sweatpants and slowly pulled my sweatshirt over it.