*Run.*
*Don't look back.*
He ran.
He didn't know for how long. He didn't know in which direction. The massive trees blurred past him — dark shapes against a darker sky — and the only thing his mind could hold onto was that single, desperate command.
*Run.*
---
His chest was burning.
Not the kind of burn that fades. The kind that sits deep — like swallowed embers that haven't gone out yet.
His small head throbbed with every step. And his bones — his bones felt like they were coming apart. Like something was trying to break out from the inside.
---
Then his legs gave out.
No warning. No stumble.
Just — gone.
He hit the freezing mud hard. The impact jarred through him. For a moment he just lay there, cheek against the cold ground, breathing in wet earth and dead leaves.
*Get up.*
He tried. His arms pushed against the mud and stopped. They simply wouldn't listen. Whatever his mind was sending, it wasn't arriving.
So he did the only thing left. He dug his fingers into the dirt.
And he crawled.
Inch by inch. Through the dark, through the mud, through the cold that had long since stopped feeling like cold and started feeling like nothing.
---
*It hurts.*
Simple. Almost childlike.
*It hurts.*
He had cried so much on that stone table. He remembered the ceiling above it — grey, cracked, always the same. He had stared at it enough times to know every line.
He didn't want to go back. He couldn't.
---
A memory came up — blurred at the edges.
A warm hand. Larger than his. Steady.
And a voice, quiet and close —
*"No more pain. I promise."*
He didn't remember the face. He wasn't sure he had ever seen it properly.
But the hand — he remembered the hand.
---
He just wanted the burning in his chest to stop. That was all.
Not safety. Not rescue. Not warmth or food.
Just — *stop.*
*Please.*
---
Slowly, the trees began to blur. The wind, which had been tearing at him the whole time, faded. First to a murmur. Then to nothing.
His fingers, still pressed into the mud, went still.
His eyes closed.
Once.
Twice.
And then the darkness came.
Not sudden. Slow.
And he was gone.
---
Night grew darker. The forest was quiet. Somewhere between the trees, a small shape lay still in the mud.
Breathing.
Barely.
But breathing.
---
**[Prologue — End]**