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.

I groaned and sat up, mud caked to my face and my clothes, and

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

ravine was steep, and when I tried to climb it, my sore and trembling 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

step ached 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 here in the

pine trees, the hoot of an owl, and the scurrying of a weasel made me jump like a scared animal, but I did my best to calm my nerves and

one sound, however, that

sounded like a

turned in a full circle, my eyes scanning my surroundings as best they could in the dark. There was nothing there that I could see, but

town and to campus, but it wasn’t unheard

“Don’t… move.”

mouth and a thin arm wrapped around my waist. All I could do

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

stranger shouted.

Protected?

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

an animal. It was a mix between the

on two legs, but its body

what it was exactly, but I

snarled and 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

a tangle of limbs. I couldn’t make out exactly what was happening in the darkness, but

and scurried off into the

I whispered, pushing myself up

stranger came

“We need to

his hand to help 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