When you run, you find a place inside your head where everything else falls away. Where all the world is quiet; empty but for the ground under your feet.\n\nYou've always been able to find that place, always. Since you were a child.\n\nIt made you a great runner.\n\nIt made your father love you.
You run like the wind.\n\nYou [[chant|Chant]] under your breath, repeating your father's good luck charm. You're going to be fine. She won't catch you. You can outrun anybody.\n\nYou can, you know you can. You //have//.\n\nYou can outsteal, outfight, outrun //anybody.// \n\nBut maybe not any//thing//.\n\nYou almost trip over a tree root, as if your brain cringed so hard from that thought that your body followed its lead. \n\nStop thinking. Stop //thinking//, how the fuck can you run fast enough when you're thinking so //loud//? You need to run, you need to escape, you need to //run//.\n\nYou [[run|Run]].
You're going to be fine.\n\n[[Breathe out|Breathe2]].
You brush the thought away, impatient. It has been snowing for as long as you can remember. The winter has been long.\n\nThe winter has been long, and your father is waiting for you, and you are going to be fine.\n\nYou are going to be fine, but she is behind you, with every living thing in the forest against you: every tree, every plant, every flower. \n\n//Every flower but one.//\n\nEven now, it pricks through your skin, a ruby droplet easing down your throat with every breath.\n\n[[She is behind you.|Behind]]
Your mind is empty and clear.\n\nThe ache in your chest has cleared, and your chest rises and falls in time with the pounding of your feet and your pulse and the words circling your head.\n\n[[You trip|Trip]].
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She is somewhere in the depths of the woods behind you, and your chest aches to know that you're leaving her behind, and the desperate sorrow in your heart tells you to stop and maybe she'll forgive you if you turn back now, if you promise to never leave her again, promise her your eternal love and loyalty on bended knee, and -\n\n[[She's inside you.|Inside]]
You shake your head to dislodge her thoughts, and spit blood on the snow. \n\nHow have you had the time to bleed this much? The blood had not even begun to ooze through your skin when you left the castle, and you've only been running for\n\nYou have no idea how long you've been running for.\n\nAnd for the first time, you realise you have no idea if you're even running [[in the right direction|Direction]].
You're Going To Be Fine.
You run.\n\nYou realise that the footsteps have begun anew; closer than before. Or farther away? The snow muffles sounds, confuses you.\n\n[[When did it start to snow?|Snow]]
But every forest ends in every direction eventually, and she's still trying to infect you with her thoughts. She's still chasing you.\n\nYou can outrun anyone in the world, and you are going.\n\nTo.\n\nBe.\n\n[[Fine.|Sleep]]
[[Breathe in|Breathe1]].
Branches whip past your face as your feet pound the dirt.\n\n//You're going to be fine.//\n\nYou push air out of your lungs, every breath burning and exhausting, your throat aching and itching.\n\n//You're going to be fine.//\n\nYou sweat under the oppressive, damp heat of the forest.\n\n//You're going to be fine.//\n\nYou [[chant this to yourself|Chant]] in time with your desperate run. \n\nShe's right behind you, but you're [[going to be fine|Fine]].
You take off slow, giving your abused body a few precious moments to get used to the already punishing pace, before speeding up. You don't have time to coddle yourself. \n\nYour father is waiting.\n\nShe's close behind, you know she is. But he's waiting for you, and you are going to be fine.\n\nYou swore to your father that you would be. You swore to //yourself//.\n\nYou're going to be [[fine|StillNotFine]].
It's sluggish, but even if it hadn't given the game away by tripping you, you'd know from long experience that it's just an act. Of course things are slow to react for the first few moments of the unholy life she breathes into them, but this is inside the forest.\n\nThis tree has been alive for centuries.\n\nPerhaps even longer.\n\nYou stare down at the tree root as it twines slowly, seductively. Before you came to her forest you never knew how beautiful nature could be. How strange and alien, and yet so familiar.\n\nThere is something about the way that it moves that transfixes you.\n\n[[You're going to be fine|Wake]].
You have sisters. Two of them, she said. They love dresses, and jewels, and are very beautiful. Far more beautiful than you, with sharp little minds to match their sharp little eyes.\n\nYou have two sisters, and they are waiting for your return.
The words run through your head slowly and softly; a whispered lullaby in a familiar, lilting voice. \n\nTo be fair, she could hardly have known the significance of those words.\n\nThe words snap you out of your hypnotised state and you blink at the tree root, startled.\n\nIt's closer than it was, only moments ago. \n\nMoments? Or [[minutes|Minutes]]?
You don't have time to think about it, but memories slam into you like a train, leaving you breathless and freshly aghast; your old wounds aching, and the new ones still bleeding:\n\nThe word your father whispered to you, the very last time you saw him; cloak torn and eyes wild.\n\nYour final night in her bedroom, the glow under the door, the silent way you slipped out from between the sheets, trying not to wake her.\n\nThe way your throat tore as you swallowed your prize.\n\nThe look in her eyes as salvation was lost to her forever.\n\n\nYou're thrown from your memories as you notice a sound you don't understand:\n\n[[Silence|Stopped]].
Your gritted teeth do nothing to disguise the sob that breaks from your throat.\n\nYou're strong, but //this//, this is something you're not cut out for. Nobody is.\n\nYou look down.\n\nYou can't help yourself.\n\nYou knew you were too graceful to trip by accident.\n\nThe tree root is [[moving|Moving]].
//Breathe in.//\n\nYou're going\n\n//Breathe out.//\n\nto be fine.
You stagger to a halt, the words racing through you like thunder, breath rattling through the maze of thorns in your throat.\n\nYou aren't as immune as you thought.\n\nYou are almost more plant than girl, and her thoughts are inside you, growing alongside you and the rose.\n\nThey are both inside you to the bone, and there is no cutting them out, not now.\n\nNot that you would remove the rose, even if you could. Yes, it's the conduit, letting her mind leech into your body, but it's also your last and only chance at survival.\n\nYour father is waiting for you and the rose.\n\nAnd - your [[sisters|Sisters]]? Your sisters are waiting. They want you to return, regardless of what you want. And your father wants the rose that doesn't even belong to him.\n\nYou are nothing like your father, or your sisters, you know that. She taught you that.\n\nIt is snowing, and your sisters are so jealous of you. It's cold, and you miss her warmth. The way she wanted to protect you.\n\nIt's cold, and [[you're going to be fine|SoNotFine]].
[img[http://i.imgur.com/vhnAgw5.png]] \n\n[[Run|Opening]].
Your gritted teeth do nothing to disguise the sob that breaks from your throat.\n\nYou're strong, but //this//, this is something you're not cut out for. Nobody is.\n\nYou know exactly what is at your feet, and you can't look down. If you don't look down, you'll be fine. You'll be fine.\n\nYou look down.\n\nYou can't help yourself.\n\nYou knew you were too graceful to trip by accident.\n\nThe tree root is [[moving|Moving]].
You can't hear a thing.\n\nYou strain your ears for the softest footfall, but there's nothing. There isn't even any birdsong, but that's hardly unsual for this forest.\n\nHas she stopped chasing you at last? Have you escaped?\n\nYour lip is raw and bloody under your teeth, as you refuse to breathe, as you refuse to dare to hope.\n\nShe's in the forest, you know she is. She always is.\n\nBut //where//?\n\n[[Creak|Creak]].
vociferocity
You have no idea how long you spent under the sway of the plant.\n\nYou have no idea how close she is.\n\nApart from the soft rustle of the root snaking its way across the leaves to you, you can't hear a thing.\n\nYou know she likes the quiet, but it's time for her woods to become noisy again.\n\n[[Run|RunAgain]].
\n    The woods are lovely, dark and deep. \n    But I have promises to keep,\n    And miles to go before I sleep, \n    And miles to go before I sleep.\n\n    -Robert Frost.
Something at your feet makes a strange, but familiar noise; an old castle in the dark of night.\n* [[Ignore it|Ignore]].\n* [[Look down|Look]].
She's not going to catch up with you. Nobody runs as fast as you, //Nobody//. \n\nBut the sound of footsteps behind you hasn't gotten any softer or slower since you abandoned the tame lawn of her castle for this desperate run.\n\nYou're going to be fine, but you'll admit that so far she's keeping pace with you.\n\nIt doesn't matter. Soon you'll be out of these infernal woods; out of her territory, and into your own. You'll lose her then, even if you don't manage to before then.\n\n[[You're going to be fine|StillFine]].
//Fuck!//\n\nWhere did that blasted root come from? You're on your knees in the warm mud, your palms flat against soft fallen leaves and an ocean of biting insects.\n\nWithin an instant, you're on your feet again, but all the aches and pains that had eased when you were in the quiet [[place|Zone]] inside your head have returned.\n\nYou wheeze softly, your hands pressed against your thighs. You just need a moment. Just one moment, and then you'll continue.\n\nYou'll be fine.\n\nYou lift one hand, and check the bulge in your throat with one hesitant finger; it comes away wet with more than just mud.\n\nYou're not sure when you began to [[bleed|Bleed]].