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.

laying in the bottom of the ravine. I groaned and sat up, mud caked to my face and my clothes, and frantically looked around. The

to stand. Thankfully, my body wasn’t completely broken, although I felt

up enough strength to haul myself up. I would have to find an area that was less steep, but it was hard to see

more and more, 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 night out

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

was one sound, however, that was different

sounded like a

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

I had never 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

“Don’t… move.”

but a gloved hand clapped over my mouth and a thin arm wrapped

any animal I had heard before. It sounded… human and catlike at the same time, and it wasn’t

stranger shouted.

Protected?

pulled me back with him. I opened my eyes a crack to see something that shook my world for the millionth time in the

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

human or feline I had ever seen. It stood on two

exactly, but I knew one thing: it was a

leaped toward us. The stranger released his grip on me and threw me to the side, where I tumbled to the ground with a shriek. The monster turned to come after me, but the stranger barreled into the monster’s

what was happening in the darkness, but the sounds said it all.

scurried off into the woods on

whispered, pushing myself

came

he replied. “We

me up. As he did so, the moon came out from behind a cloud and illuminated him. His hood had slipped back, and his mask and sunglasses had