She knew the monster was with her.

Rosalind’s breath stuttered as she stood frozen in the inky dark, every muscle stiff

and sore from being rigid so long.

How long had it been? She didn’t know. She never knew.

It always felt like years.

Electricity shot through the stagnant air around her, and it smelled like something had burnt. The tightly coiled dread in her stomach unfurled, spreading through her veins like slow rolling magma that scorched her from the inside out.

A sinister presence loomed behind her. The hair rose up on the back of her neck, but she forced herself to stay still, to stay facing forward. Even when the darkness lifted. Even when her eyes tracked the all too familiar scene in front of her.

She couldn’t look back. That was even worse than what lay ahead.

A sharp breath slid through her teeth when the boy entered her line of vision. After all this time, she still winced when she saw him run and jump, stumbling with the intoxicating invincibility of childhood. The blissful innocence in his eyes sent a fissure through her feeble heart.

She couldn’t watch him lose it again.

But, inevitably, the monster rose up and focused its sight on the young boy. Though she knew what would happen—that she couldn’t stop it no matter how hard she tried—her hands clenched into fists, her nails digging into her palms. The energy behind her grew, surging, sucking the life out of her with each shaky breath.

Rosalind knew what would happen.

Again.

Still, she lurched forward, desperate to save the boy this time, but she had barely taken a step when the energy around her pulsed and crackled. The atmosphere split open for a moment. Rosalind had only a second to register the taste of burnt metal in her mouth, the roaring in her ears, before a force blew her back and she skidded across the ground.

Trembling, Rosalind jerked her head up, eyes darting around in a desperate attempt to find the boy, hoping vainly that he had somehow escaped.

A broken sound erupted from her when she saw him: twisted, bruised, in a puddle of red.

Horror shook her bones. She scrambled back, colliding with the presence behind her, and instinctively turned around.

Her scream tore her throat in half.