They came out of nowhere. The worst part was that she saw them coming. She saw those shades approach from the distant hills, their horrid snarls and desperate moans breaking through the relative quietness of five girls running for their lives. She watched helplessly as they lunged at her. She stared as the closest one ripped its talons through her torso, blood and flesh flying with the trajectory of the shade’s claw. She saw the world turn sideways, the ground meeting her eye level as she collapsed. 

The worst part was seeing everything like it happened in slow motion. The pain seemed to move in slow motion too. It blossomed outwards as soon as she registered the shade’s claws entering her body. It seared through her in waves, forcing pathetic tears to roll past her grit teeth and onto the dirt where she lay in a prone position. Feeble whimpers escaped her throat as she tried to bring her hands up to her torso to lessen the bleeding. Every twitch of her now blood-soaked fingers was excruciating. Any remnant of the cheerful girl from minutes before was replaced with the quivering mess on the ground.

In the distant corner of her mind that wasn’t completely blocked by the pain, she noticed that Camilla trying to shield her and Shakti with her own body. A voice had called out, ordering them to eat the shade. Winnie didn’t think herself as very religious, but in times like this it helped to have a higher power to blame for putting her in this situation. Nonetheless, she didn’t give a second thought. She slowly crawled to the corpse of the shade. Sobs wracked her broken frame as she bit into the flesh and she continued to curse at the cruel god who sent her to this place.