My Hockey Alpha

Nina

I didn’t stick around long enough to find out what would happen if I didn’t run, and I didn’t look over my shoulder. I focused on the sidewalk ahead, running as fast as I could as my fear came true: I heard the sound of feet running behind me. They were getting closer, and I knew that the stranger was pursuing me.

“Help!” I yelled, but the streets were deserted. No one was around to hear me, and even if they were, I had heard stories about women’s cries for help being ignored before. I couldn’t even call the police since I lost my phone.

“Slow down!” the stranger called from behind me. I picked up my pace, my heart pounding harder and faster with every step, my legs pumping as fast as I could make them.

Suddenly, the stranger picked up his speed and caught up to me, circling around me and cutting me off. I shrieked and turned around to run in the other direction, but he grabbed my wrist and held me fast.

“Let go!” I screamed, wrenching my arm as hard as I could. My wrist burned and throbbed, but I got away.

I had two options: keep running in a straight line out in the open in the hopes that he would either give up or someone would come along to help me, although he would probably catch me again just as easily, or… I could dart into the woods next to us and use the darkness to my advantage. Maybe I could lose him between the trees, plus the campus was right on the other side of this patch of woods, so I could possibly find a public safety officer once I got there.

I knew it wasn’t the smartest option. but it made sense in my terrified mind.

Without taking longer to think about it, I sprinted as fast as I could into the woods.

“Hey!” the stranger yelled, crashing into the woods after me as I wove around trees in an attempt to lose him. “You’re not gonna get far. I can smell you!”

My heart leaped up in my throat. He could… smell me?

This guy was really nuts!

I kept running, darting through the dark woods in the hopes that I would lose him, but his footsteps never sounded far off. My lungs and my legs burned, but still I picked up speed. Just a little more distance and I would come out on the other side of the woods….

It was dark, and I didn’t see the ravine.

Suddenly, I was falling down a hill, my limbs scraping against rocks and tree roots as I tumbled down. I felt my head hit against something hard, then everything went black.

caked to my face and my clothes, and frantically looked around. The stranger was nowhere to

completely broken, although I felt dizzy from hitting my

limbs couldn’t muster up enough strength to haul myself up. I would have to find an area that was less steep, but it was hard to see

but I had to keep going in case the stranger was going to catch up, and even if he did give up and leave, I couldn’t spend

the pine trees, the hoot of an owl, and the scurrying of a weasel made me jump like a scared animal,

was one sound, however, that was different from the

like a low

full circle, my eyes scanning my surroundings as best they could in the dark. There

thought that such animals would linger so close to town and to campus, but it wasn’t unheard of here in Canada. I felt incredibly stupid for coming out here in the

“Don’t… move.”

arm wrapped around my waist.

any animal I had heard before. It sounded… human and catlike at the same

the stranger shouted.

Protected?

continued. The stranger pulled me back with him. I opened my eyes a crack to see something that shook my world for the

was it an animal. It was a mix between the two, like a sick science experiment

two legs, but its body was

what it was exactly, but I knew one

his grip on me and threw me to the side, where I tumbled to

a tangle of limbs. I couldn’t make out exactly what was happening in the darkness, but the sounds said it all. The sounds of the monster

shrieked and scurried off into the

myself up from

stranger came over

“We need

me up. As he did so, the moon came out from behind a cloud and illuminated him. His