Page 24 of Shifting Hearts 1
I am nothing.
Yet I keep running like I am trying to outrun the truth, like I am trying to leave my own skin behind.
But I can’t escape what I am.
What I never was.
The weight of it crushes me, pressing into my chest, cold fingers closing around my lungs. The world tilts. My knees buckle as my hands collide with dirt and stone.
I don’t want to stop, but suddenly, I can’t move.
I clutch at my chest, gasping, choking—something is wrong. The air feels different, charged, thick with something too heavy, too unnatural.
The forest holds its breath.
A terrible, aching pressure builds in my ribs, under my skin, inside my very bones. It doesn’t hurt like the cuts, like the bruises. It’s much worse.
Something inside me shifts.
Not my bones, not my muscles—something deeper, something darker.
The pressure coils inside me, ancient and hungry, like something buried too long is clawing its way to the surface. My breath stutters, my hands digging into the cold, damp earth.Trying to ground myself, trying to hold on to the girl I’ve always been, but she’s slipping through my fingers.
The forest is too quiet.
Even the wind feels wrong, like it doesn’t know which direction to blow, as if it’s waiting for something.Watching.
I press a hand to my chest as my pulse hammers against my palm, frantic and uneven. This isn’t fear, this isn’t exhaustion, it’s something else. Something breaking open beneath my skin.
I don’t understand it, and that terrifies me more than anything.
A rustling sound cuts through the silence, sharp and deliberate–a footstep.
I force myself up, staggering forward, shoving through the thick tangle of undergrowth. The world sways, my vision sharp and blurred all at once, like something inside me is shifting my senses against my will.
Another step. Closer now.
My breathing turns shallow. They found me.
I push faster, harder. I won’t go back. I won’t let them drag me home like some wounded thing, like some mistake they need to erase.
The pressure in my chest grows heavier, an unseen force curling through my veins. The wind picks up almost violently, whipping the trees into motion, howling as if it knows what’s coming next.
Then I feel it.
Not just the presence behind me, but the way the forest bends around me.
The way the air crackles, like energy is being pulled toward me, like something I never understood is waking up inside the marrow of my bones.
When the first shadow moves between the trees, I realize they're slowing down.
Their movements drag, hesitation flickering in their steps. Their bodies fight against an unseen weight, something unnatural, something wrong.
My pulse pounds wildly, my legs trembling beneath me. This isn’t normal. It’s not possible.
And yet the wind howls louder, the air thickens, and the moment Aldric’s scent reaches me, I know something is wrong.
They should have caught me by now. Should have closed in, should have dragged me back, kicking and screaming, but they didn’t.
