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Atrani · 07-19-2017, 09:27 PM

XImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient( startColorstr='#1b305d', endColorstr='#1b305d', GradientType=0 );}.atrwords{position: relative;z-index: 10;font: 13px 'Times New Roman', serif;text-align: justify;color: #DFD3C3;padding: 10px 20px;background: #252C3F;width: 480px;border-top: 4px double#352b3b;margin-top: -15px;box-shadow: 0 0 6px #000;}.atrname{position: relative;z-index: 12;color: #fff;text-shadow: 0px 0px 6px #fff, 0 0 10px #D6A85E, 0 0 30px #fff, 0 0 50px #fff, 0 0 70px #fff;font: 30px 'Great Vibes', cursive;letter-spacing: 3px;text-align: right;padding-right: 40px;margin-top: -20px;}.atrquote{position: relative;z-index: 14;color: #C1C7BF;text-align: left;padding-left: 33px;font: 11px 'Times New Roman', serif;font-style: italic;margin-top: 4px;}.atrcredits{position: relative;z-index: 17;color: #000;font: 11px 'Times New Roman', serif;}</style><center><div class="atrani"><img class="atrpic" src="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/b0/3d/34/b03d341a453bc269f27e608fdd5e5125.jpg"><div class="atrgrad"></div><div class="atrname">Atrani</div><div class="atrwords">In the blink of an eye – ha! The humor! – she is no longer standing on a mountain peak with the wind whipping her unruly locks across her face. Atrani cannot see the change of scenery, but she can feel it.

The rocks that had chipped and squealed beneath her shifting weight is now grass. She doesn’t ask why or how the ground is suddenly cushion underneath her and not quite as precarious.

Who would she even ask?

Everything around her is eerily still, more so now. It had not been like this before; it was lonely, but it wasn’t frightening. A chill climbs up her rigid spine because the eyes are blinking to life. They watch her hungrily, but what’s more unsettling is that she can’t even meet their gaze. She doesn’t know where they are, only the stabbing sense of foreboding of eyes boring into her.

Her body shifts. A twig cracks. A swift pull of her attention and her face is looking in the direction of the noise, unseeing.

When they inch closer – their footsteps whispering across the grass – is when the blisters surface across her skin. That’s when she actually diverts her attention away from the danger and onto the burning of her lungs. It hurts to breathe, and yet she has to. She shifts again, but this time also takes a step forward. A low growl forces her to take pause. Silence.

She turns north although she doesn’t know which direction she is actually turning. The lure of gurgling water is what strikes her attention and draws her from the noises beginning to surround her. With a weighted breath Atrani lurches forward. She only reaches for two strides before an ear-shattering scream breaks the quiet and nails claw down from her left hip down toward her hock. It pounced on her, but it barely missed her. It had been enough to rattle her balance and skew her hindquarters to the right before recovering. Blood is immediately dripping down her legs, but she runs. The boils burst and bleed. Pus dribbles down, thick as it clings to her mangy coat.

But she can’t stop.

There’s another shrill scream and another one pounces onto her. The velocity that it attacks hurls her meager, starved body tumbling down a hill. She falls on rocks, branches, and whatever else the world hurtles at her that she cannot see. Air is knocked from her lungs as she rolls over down the hill until she is at its base, motionless, in pain.

Her body is marred, bruised, and bleeding. She cannot see the damage or what had done this to her, but if she knew what they were – what they looked like – she would want her memory wiped clean.

The creatures crawl on all fours, paled by the eternal night. Pigmentation has been lost and their vision depleted. Their roving eyes still roll in their sockets, but they see only the blackness, blurred and muddled together. Their screams are how they locate her, knowing she is moving just by her heavy and uncertain footsteps. Teeth? Jagged, serrated, ready to tear her apart. Talons? Sharp.
Bald, pale, monsters of the night.

When Atrani gasps for a breath, they shuffle in her direction, attracted by the sound. She catches it in her throat and the muscles in her empty sockets twitch as readily as her ears. They don’t move. She stands, her bones creaking. They press closer. One of them screams, but she doesn’t move and somehow she slips their notice as they blindly stare down at her from the crest of the hill. Their nails scrape ominously across the dirt, waiting for her to make a move.

This time, more calculated, she inches to the left. It’s where she can hear a faint rustle of pines as her mind rings back to reality. Another slow, meticulous step followed by another. It hurts to move – her legs, her skin, her lungs – but there is no other option. When there are trees close enough, she tries desperately to slide behind a wall of them, pressing her shoulder against the rough bark. It offers support for a moment as she musters her strength. They’ve inched closer, still screaming occasionally and blindly groping in front of them much like Atrani. Her muzzle glides along the side of the tree then reaches for the next one to measure the distance.

It’s large enough for her.

It’s a desperate attempt, but what else can a blind girl do?

There are no leaves underfoot. These are pine trees. But pine cones? There are those. Her back legs shift and she kicks behind her gently. She scrapes her hooves across the bark and her heavy landing attracts them. She squeals then, luring them toward her.

And they come.

They screech and jump, leaping through the air. Her movement is noted.

Their claws nearly grab her again, but they mostly latch onto the trees that are a barricade in front of her. They are her shield. But there is one that lunges in between a pair of pines. It stabs its nails into her and then it bites her, but she kicks again then runs. She awkwardly winds her body through that gap she had measured only moments prior. While the creatures scramble around the trees to find her, Atrani runs toward the sound of the river. The gurgling is a beacon to her ears. She stumbles, yes, but she also doesn’t stop. Her lungs burn and the blisters adorning her skin fester, pop, and dribble. Blood trickles down her back legs, thick rivulets weaving to her legs where it falls and splatters across the grass.

And still, she runs.

They’re following her. She can hear their screams and the rush of their footsteps. They pant hungrily in hot pursuit. Closer… They’re gaining on her… She’s tiring…

Another painful breath.

And then she stumbles. Water immediately greets her. Her legs scramble to break the surface of the river, and she gasps for another lungful of air.

The current sweeps her away. Attentively, her ears swivel to hear for the creatures, but they stopped at the river’s edge. They scream again and again, trying desperately to locate her, but the river hides her from their echolocation-type prowess. Atrani doesn’t have the energy to fight the current, and so she lets the water bathe her wounds and take her to the lake, into where it empties.

Her body, exhausted and torn, is abandoned at the water’s edge of the lake. The only thing that shows the world she is alive are the rise and falls of her ragged breaths.

</div><div class="atrquote">dove into her eyes and starved all the fears</div></div><div class="atrcredits">picture by <a href="http://www.boredpanda.com/death-like-skeleton-drawings-haenuli-shin/?utm_source=androidapp&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=androidapp">haenuli shin</a>- HTML by Call - words: ________</div></div></center>
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