Books A-Baking

She is there around the next bend in the path, she is above in the sky, she is below under ground, she is the trees, she is the water, she is the wind biting at his skin. He will run and run and run and run and there will be no point to it.

But he keeps running.

He stumbles after hours or days. He hits the ground with a weak grunt of pain, too tired to catch himself. His whole body aches.

She stands over him, smiling.

He doesn't speak. She doesn't get his words. It's the one thing he can deny her, so he does. Cries and shrieks and sobs she gets eventually, but never anything with meaning beyond pain. If she hunts him like an animal, he'll play the part.

The castle looms, dark and crumbling. He has no memory of the journey back, no clear idea of how he ends up locked in this room again.

The portraits are still there.

He traces shaking fingers along the frame of the oldest one. She smiles at him here too. His own face does as well, mocking him. The paint looks freshly dry. There is no dust here. No fading from sunlight or age. Their eyes stare down at him and they are all her eyes, even his, searching him, weighing him, laughing at him.

He buries his face in his hands and lets himself scream.