Legs on Fire, Heart on Guard: Because Running is Apparently My New Hobby (Spoiler: It's Not Fun)
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Author Note: "Hello, dear reader! If you're wondering why our protagonist sounds like he's narrating a particularly intense leg day at the gym, well, you're not entirely wrong. However, instead of a personal trainer yelling encouragement, he's got… something else on his heels. Also, pro-tip: when fleeing unknown terrors, try to avoid worlds where the ground is suspiciously red. Just a thought. Enjoy the chaos!"
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His legs screamed with every step.
The pain was no longer just a dull ache—it was searing now, alive and vicious, eating through his muscles like fire. Each stride sent waves of agony radiating from his thighs to his calves, his joints trembling with the effort to keep going. He could feel the deep burn in his tendons, the tightness in his knees, and the raw, blistering ache in the soles of his feet. His breath came in sharp, ragged bursts, his chest rising and falling in frantic rhythm, the taste of blood at the back of his throat. Still, he didn't stop.
He couldn't.
Something primal pushed him forward, a deep-rooted instinct that had little to do with logic and everything to do with survival—and protection. The girl in his arms was unconscious, vulnerable, and impossibly light, as though she might disappear if he stopped looking at her for too long. The world around him—the jagged terrain, the cracked earth, the jagged silhouettes of dead trees clawing at the sky—was nothing but a smear of chaos, a hostile dreamscape painted in tones of desolation and threat.
He had no idea where he was.
Or where he was going.
He only knew that something—someone—was coming. Something terrifying. He couldn't hear it, couldn't see it, but its presence clung to the air like static before a storm, heavy and electric, charging the very ground beneath his feet.
And still, he ran.
The girl in his arms was the only anchor in a world that no longer made sense. She was the only clear thread in a tapestry of madness. He didn't know her name. Didn't know where she had come from or what horrors had left her broken and bleeding. He didn't know why she felt so familiar. But the certainty gripped him tightly, more powerful than fear itself—he had to protect her.
Even if it killed him.
The need was overwhelming, drowning out every logical question he could ask himself. Who was she? Why did she matter? Why did he care? But none of those questions could rise to the surface. They drowned beneath the rushing tide of adrenaline, urgency, and a strange, unexplainable emotional pull that rooted deep in his chest. It felt ancient—older than memory.
There was something else. Something he hadn't yet understood.
He was moving, but it didn't feel like him. Not entirely. There was a disconnect between his will and his body, like he was floating somewhere behind his own eyes, observing instead of acting. His arms shifted the girl's weight automatically when she began to slip, adjusting her position with practiced ease that didn't belong to him. His feet dodged loose rocks and potholes in the ground with grace that was not his own.
He was faster than he should be.
Stronger.
More alert.
His senses were heightened, sharp to the point of pain—he could feel every shift in the wind, hear the brittle snap of dead grass underfoot, smell the faint metallic tang of blood soaked into her clothes. It was as if something had taken over. Not in a way that suggested possession or control—but something within him had woken up.
And that something knew how to survive.
And how to protect.
He wasn't just carrying her now—he was shielding her with his body, positioning his arms in a way that kept her injury from worsening, adjusting his stride to minimize the jarring impact of his steps. He ran like a soldier trained for this, like a guardian shaped by purpose, his fear not erased but transformed into fuel.
But in the midst of it all, he was afraid.
Terrified, even.
Not just of what might be chasing them, but of himself—of what he was becoming in the face of this unknown. He didn't recognize this version of himself. Didn't recognize this world.
But none of that mattered more than her.
Not now.
Not while she was still breathing.
A blinding streak of red light tore through the air beside him.
It screamed past his head with terrifying speed, the searing heat of it close enough to singe the air and make his skin prickle as though licked by open flame. The force of it blew his hair back, the sound sharp and unnatural, like the sky itself had cracked open.
"Fuck! Fuck! For the love of God!"
The words burst from his throat in a hoarse, panicked shout, tumbling out in a rapid-fire stammer of terror and disbelief. He didn't recognize his own voice. It was raw, frayed at the edges with panic. There was no composure left, no self-control—only instinct, only fear.
And then guilt.
His heart twisted painfully at the name he had thrown out in vain. He wasn't the kind of man to curse like that. Especially not like that. There had always been a boundary, a line he didn't cross. Respect. Reverence. Even in fear. But that line had vanished now, burned away by the sheer surreal horror of this moment.
What was happening to him?
What nightmare had he stepped into—this world of violent energy and twisted physics, where sand swallowed staircases and crimson fireballs tore through the air?
Another blast came.
This one didn't miss.
It screamed toward him—toward them—a pulsating wave of scarlet light, larger than the last and impossible to outrun. In that heartbeat, time slowed. He could see it, feel the charged air around it vibrating, the low hum building in his ears like pressure beneath water.
Sawyer didn't think.
His body moved on its own, some buried instinct surging to the surface. In a single, fluid motion, he twisted his body, flinging the unconscious girl over his shoulder with a strength he didn't know he possessed.
He didn't hesitate.
Didn't question the logic.
He turned into the blast.
His arms came up in a reflexive motion, one hand striking out—open-palmed and unguarded. The impact was like being hit by a car made of fire. The energy hit him full-force, a deafening crack echoing as it met his hand and dispersed into a violent shockwave that rippled through the air.
He staggered backward.
His boots skidded through the red sand, the ground beneath him soft and unstable, shifting like a living thing that didn't want him there. His knees buckled. His legs screamed again, and his back ached from the torque of the spin, but still—he didn't fall.
He turned immediately, scrambling toward the girl.
His arms scooped her up, clutching her tight to his chest like she might slip through his fingers and disappear if he let go. Her weight wasn't heavy, but the exhaustion coursing through him made her feel like stone. Still, he held her with a desperation that bordered on madness, his entire being focused on that one task: don't let go.
Then the pain hit him.
White-hot.
Sharp.
Like a brand pressed against his ribs.
His hand went to his side on instinct, and he nearly doubled over. His fingers brushed skin—wet and sticky. A burst of agony bloomed as they made contact with the wound, the pulsing heat spreading outwards in brutal rhythm with his heartbeat.
He looked down.
His hand came away soaked in blood. Not a little. Not a graze. It gleamed dark red in the eerie, unearthly light.
A gash.
Deep.
His own blood. A brutal reminder that no matter how fast, how strong, how determined he was, he was not invincible.
The sight made his stomach churn. Nausea rose in the back of his throat, acid and fear mixing in equal measure. But there was no time to collapse. No room for weakness.
The girl shifted slightly against him.
A breath. A flutter.
She was still alive.
That was all that mattered.
And he would bleed out before he let anything else take her away.
Sawyer's gaze drifted downward again, his breath catching in his throat.
A strangled gasp tore from his lips, raw and involuntary, as the reality of what he saw finally settled in—heavy, brutal, and grotesquely surreal.
There it was.
A gaping wound.
Not just a cut or a laceration, but an actual hole—clean, circular, and impossibly deep—boring straight through the side of his abdomen.
The flesh around it was torn and seared at the edges, the skin charred like paper caught in flame. The diameter of the wound was unnatural, too precise, too smooth, like a drill had been shoved through him by something cold, intelligent, and merciless.
He blinked.
Once.
Twice.
And then again—because through that horrifying opening, he could see the ground.
The coarse, crimson-tinted sand. The jagged outline of distant stone. The fractured, alien terrain beyond the battlefield.
It wasn't a metaphor.
There was a literal hole in his body.
His mind reeled.
How…?
How was he alive?
The question circled his brain like a siren, blaring loud over the throb of pain. His heart pumped furiously, thudding like it was trying to race ahead of the bleeding. And yet—he was still standing.
Still breathing.
Still holding the girl in his arms.
A wound like this should have dropped him on the spot. No hesitation. No slow fade. It should have ended him.
But here he was.
Staggering, bloodied, dizzy—but alive.
Barely.
The agony pulsed with every beat of his heart—a thick, hot throb that radiated through his entire torso. It wasn't just pain—it was wrong. His body wasn't built to handle this. No one's was.
He could feel himself growing colder. Slower. Each breath more labored than the last, dragging through clenched teeth like broken glass. But he clung to consciousness like a man drowning in dark water, fighting the undertow of shock and blood loss with every ounce of will he had left.
Then, another thought struck him. A different kind of horror.
What did this to him?
What kind of weapon left a wound like that—so neat, so devastating? Not a blade. Not a bullet. It wasn't jagged. There was no tear or scatter. It was surgical. Merciless. Almost… deliberate.
Was it the blast? The red energy that had screamed toward him?
He couldn't remember the moment of impact—only the flash of heat, the involuntary cry, the mind-numbing pain that followed. It had all happened so fast, so violently, that his brain had simply skipped it, protecting him from the worst of the memory.
But the aftermath was here. Bleeding. Burning. Real.
And with every second that passed, the weight of what had happened grew heavier on his shoulders.
His thoughts turned to the girl in his arms—still breathing, still fragile. She was the only reason he hadn't collapsed already. The only thread tying him to this world.
If he went down now… she wouldn't stand a chance.
Not in this place.
Not with whatever had done this to him still out there.
The answer came—not in words, not in a shout, but in a sound so deliberate, so unnervingly calm, that it chilled him deeper than any scream could.
A slow, deliberate clapping echoed through the air.
Each clap landed like a drumbeat on the chest of the silence, sharp and steady, as though it had always belonged in this desolate place.
It was rhythmic, yes—but not comforting. Not congratulatory.
It was mocking.
It was patient.
It was the sound of something confident—something watching.
The sound wasn't just heard; it was felt. It moved through the space like a ripple, slithering across the jagged stones, brushing through the scattered ash and sand, and sinking into his skin like icy needles. Each clap was a punctuation mark in an invisible sentence, one written in menace and quiet cruelty.
Sawyer's breath hitched.
His entire body went rigid, an involuntary reaction born from something older than logic—something primal. Every muscle tensed, frozen in the grip of instinctual alarm. His heart pounded against his ribs, wild and chaotic, like it too was trying to escape the inevitable.
That sound…
It was familiar. Not the specific clapping, but the feeling it brought.
That deep, gnawing dread.
That cold weight in the pit of his stomach.
That awful, paralyzing stillness before something terrible reveals itself.
He'd felt it once before.
Not long ago, but far enough back that he'd tried to bury it—tried to forget the taste of real fear. But now it returned in full force, a wave crashing through his memory.
It had been a moment just like this. A brush with death. A near-obliteration that had scarred him, not on the skin, but somewhere deeper. The kind of trauma that didn't fade, just slept, waiting for a familiar trigger to wake it again.
And the clapping—it was that trigger.
The sound carried weight.
A presence.
It wasn't just a noise—it was a message. A declaration.
Sawyer didn't need to see the source to know: something was coming.
Something intelligent.
Something cruel.
It wasn't in a hurry. It didn't need to be. It knew what it was. It knew what he was.
And it knew that in this moment—injured, lost, burdened by the unconscious girl in his arms—he was prey.
The silence stretched again between the echoes of the last clap, and in it, the air thickened with the promise of violence.
Not a possibility. A certainty.
He tried to push himself up.
Tried to lift his body from the sand, to plant his feet beneath him and rise, to stand tall and meet whatever danger loomed ahead. But the moment he strained, a violent tremor overtook him—his muscles quivered, his arms buckled, and the wound in his side flared with an excruciating surge of pain.
His strength, already drained by blood loss and panic, betrayed him completely.
He collapsed back into the sand with a heavy, broken grunt.
The coarse grains scraped against his skin, embedding into the cuts and abrasions he hadn't even realized were there. Every breath became a labor, each inhale raw and shallow, and the sting of failure tightened around his chest like a noose.
The girl lay against him—silent, unmoving.
Her weight, though light, felt crushing now.
She was warm in some places, cold in others. Her arm had slipped awkwardly, her fingers brushing the sand, her head pressed limply against his collarbone. He adjusted his hold, cradling her more securely, instinctively tucking her closer into his body as if that might shield her from whatever was coming.
A surge of desperation kicked in—fierce, wild, and protective.
Not for himself.
For her.
He twisted slightly, curling over her, making his body a barrier. His vision blurred momentarily, the pain threatening to drag him under, but he forced his eyes open, forcing them to scan the horizon, the shadows, the places where darkness bled into deeper black.
His eyes darted from one corner of the haze to another, every flicker of movement sending a cold spike of adrenaline into his spine. The clapping had stopped, but the echo of it still lingered in the back of his mind like a taunt.
Then—shapes.
Not one. Three.
Figures emerged slowly from the darkness, their steps unhurried but intentional, gliding forward like specters breaching the veil of a nightmare.
He narrowed his eyes, trying to focus through the haze of pain and disbelief. Women.
But not women as he understood them.
They were tall—eerily tall—and graceful in a way that defied natural motion, like dancers in a dream, like flames swaying in the wind. Their attire was unlike anything he had ever seen outside of ancient paintings or whispered folklore.
Long, flowing gowns clung to their bodies in waves, the fabric moving with an uncanny life of its own. Colors shimmered—vibrant, alien hues that refused to stay still. One moment crimson, then violet, then emerald, shifting like oil on water. The effect was hypnotic and deeply unsettling, like watching the skin of a snake ripple just before it strikes.
Tall, pointed hats crowned their heads, conjuring images from children's stories—witches, sorceresses, fabled spell-weavers of forgotten worlds.
But there was nothing comforting or whimsical here.
The hats cast long, angular shadows across the sand, which twisted unnaturally as they walked, dancing and writhing in distorted patterns that seemed to mock natural law.
In their hands, each of them held a wand.
Not toy-like, not delicate—but sleek and unnervingly precise.
Each wand pulsed faintly with light—soft, yet cold. Not the warm flicker of firelight, but the glow of something far older, something raw and humming with potential.
The kind of power that doesn't announce itself with a roar—but with a whisper that promises devastation.
He didn't know who they were.
But he knew, without needing words or warning, that they hadn't come to help.
Sawyer's heart slammed against the inside of his chest, pounding like it was trying to escape his ribcage.
Each beat came faster, more frenzied, a desperate rhythm that seemed to drown out everything else—his thoughts, his pain, even the silence that had fallen so suddenly across the sands. His breath caught in his throat, shallow and uneven, as if the very air had turned heavy, charged with a tension he couldn't name.
Still hunched over the girl, his eyes never left the three approaching figures.
And then—he knew.
Not in the way one arrives at an answer with logic or deduction. It was something deeper. Older. Primal.
Something in his gut turned to stone as realization took hold, the truth crashing into him with the cold weight of inevitability.
Witches.
The word surfaced in his mind like a memory long buried.
They weren't just tales whispered in frightened tones. Not just the villains of bedtime stories or the grotesque caricatures drawn in storybooks with crooked noses and broomsticks. No, these were real—terrifyingly real. Flesh and blood, standing before him, wrapped in flowing gowns and power that hummed in the air like a distant storm.
They radiated something ancient, something raw. It pressed on him like gravity turned hostile, as if the world itself recognized their presence and recoiled. The energy that surrounded them wasn't seen, but felt—just beneath the skin, just above the bones. Like the tremble in the air before lightning splits the sky.
His body locked in place, the girl's weight forgotten for a moment, as dread rooted him to the spot. He didn't need more evidence.
He had lived the signs all day—the fragmented memories that didn't fit, the impossible geography of this world, the way his body had moved with unnatural instinct and power not entirely his own. All of it had been leading to this revelation.
This horrifying truth.
They were real. And they had found him.
The lead witch stepped forward.
She moved with the calm assurance of a queen surveying a conquered battlefield. Her eyes were dark, ancient wells of knowledge and cruelty, and when she spoke, her voice was sharp and deliberate—each word as cold and lethal as a blade honed over centuries.
"You have lost, Arbitr."
Sawyer flinched at the word. It meant something.
It meant him.
Her voice cut through the charged air like broken glass through silk—clear, jagged, final.
"Give us the key, and we will let you live."
The words didn't shout. They didn't need to.
They were too precise, too assured, to waste emotion. It wasn't a plea or a bargain. It was a verdict delivered. A command dressed in the hollow illusion of mercy.
And he knew instinctively that refusal would mean the end—not just of his life, but of something larger. Something he didn't yet understand.
But every cell in his body told him: he couldn't give them what they wanted.
A cold sweat, clammy and chilling, trickled down Sawyer's spine in slow, aching rivulets.
Each drop clung to his skin like ice, slipping beneath the collar of his shirt, tracing the curve of his back with a relentless persistence. It was the kind of sweat born not from heat, but from fear—the kind that seeped through when the body sensed, before the mind could admit, that death might be close.
He could barely breathe. The air itself had turned thick, sharp, difficult to swallow, as though it carried the weight of what he was about to face.
The dread wasn't fleeting. It was anchored, heavy in his chest, crawling into his bones like frostbite, turning his limbs to lead. His thoughts—usually sharp, intuitive—were now fogged, shrouded by a primal fear that blurred everything but the immediacy of danger.
He didn't need to be told he was outmatched. He could feel it.
There were no illusions left to hide behind.
He was bleeding out from a wound that shouldn't have let him stand. A gaping, grotesque hole in his side throbbed with an unforgiving rhythm, each pulse a searing stab that sent nausea spiraling through his gut. Every movement was agony. Even holding the unconscious girl in his arms felt like lifting a mountain.
Her presence—her limp body—wasn't just a weight against his chest. It was a reminder. Of his failure. Of his responsibility. Of how much he had to lose if he faltered now.
And still, standing across from him, cloaked in the strange, shifting light, were three witches.
Not ordinary women. Not even monsters.
Something older. Something true.
Their eyes glowed faintly, like hot embers just beneath the surface of their irises, alive with ancient knowledge and an insatiable hunger. They radiated power, thick and unmistakable. Not the kind that needed to be shown with dramatic flare, but the kind that simply existed. It hummed in the air around them. It dared the world to challenge it.
Sawyer knew he was no warrior.
No soldier.
Not even close.
He'd never trained for a moment like this—hadn't been prepared to fight witches born of myth and nightmare. Whatever strength he'd once relied on now felt distant, unreachable.
And that was when he noticed it—truly noticed it.
Something was off. Deeply off.
There was a wrongness inside him, a disconnect. He could feel it—like a familiar door had been slammed shut somewhere in his core. His power, the inner force he had grown to trust over time, the surge of energy that used to rise at his command—it was gone.
Or worse, contained.
There was something… pressing down on him.
An invisible, suffocating barrier that dulled everything—his strength, his instincts, even his presence. It felt like he was trapped inside himself, his body responding slower, heavier, as though wrapped in chains forged from something arcane.
A magical suppression.
A cage.
His eyes flickered across the landscape, frantic and searching, trying to spot the source. Was it one of the witches? The air? The sand beneath his feet? The very dimension they stood in? Nothing made sense.
But the void inside him—that absence where his strength should've been—was undeniable.
And terrifying.
He couldn't protect her like this. Couldn't fight. Couldn't run.
Panic began to claw its way up his throat, but he choked it back, forcing his breathing into shallow, painful gulps. Now was not the time to spiral.
He had to think. He had to move. He had to survive.
And most of all, he had to find a way to keep the girl safe—before they took her. Before they took everything.
"Don't even think about escaping, Arbitr."
The lead witch's voice cut through the tension like a blade made of ice and mockery. Her tone wasn't angry—it was worse. It was amused. Cold amusement, the kind that suggested she already knew the outcome of this encounter and was merely toying with him until the inevitable conclusion played out.
The words dripped with a cruel confidence, a sadistic kind of pleasure that sent a chill crawling down Sawyer's spine, spreading like frostbite beneath his skin.
Her eyes locked onto his with an unnerving intensity—sharp, intelligent, and far too knowing. It was as though she had been watching him long before she ever stepped into the clearing. Every twitch of his muscles, every flicker of thought behind his panicked eyes—she saw it. She understood it.
Sawyer's gaze darted instinctively, sweeping the shadows, searching—pleading—for any possible exit. But it was futile.
The two other witches moved with the silence of predators, gliding into position like dancers in a macabre performance. Each step they took was deliberate, calculated, their long gowns barely brushing the sand. They flanked him with haunting synchronicity, closing off both flanks, and forming a triangle of containment.
They weren't just surrounding him.
They were cornering him.
His breath caught in his throat. Panic fluttered in his chest like a dying bird, helpless and frantic.
Then, his body buckled.
Not from another blow—no one had moved—but from within. His knees bent, and his frame sagged under the unbearable weight of dread and failure. His head fell forward as if the strength required to hold it up had finally given out.
A wave of despair washed over him—thick, heavy, suffocating.
It wasn't like the fear before. Fear made him want to run. This was something else.
This was the beginning of surrender.
For a fleeting second, he wondered if he was already giving up. Was this it? The end? Was he allowing them to win simply because he had nothing left to fight with?
But then—
A spark.
Not in his body. Not even in his mind. But in his conviction.
They must not get the key.
That thought came crashing through the darkness like a flare, cutting through the fog of fear and helplessness. Even if he died here, even if they tore him apart, the key—the very thing they were after—could not fall into their hands.
No matter the cost.
His lips parted to speak, to scream, to plead—anything. He needed to get the message out, to communicate, to warn Arbitr, to beg him to resist. But—
Nothing.
His throat closed. His voice failed him. His vocal cords locked like rusted hinges, unresponsive to his will.
Panic bloomed again, sharper this time, because it came with a horrifying realization.
He couldn't move.
He couldn't speak.
He was still in his body—he felt everything—but it was no longer entirely his.
Trapped.
Like a passenger in a runaway vehicle, Sawyer was frozen inside himself, conscious but disconnected. A silent observer, watching helplessly from behind his own eyes, unable to change anything, unable to scream, unable to fight.
He was still alive. Still breathing.
But he was no longer free.
And the witches… they knew.
He watched—helpless, trapped in a body that no longer obeyed him—as Arbitr knelt beside the girl.
There was a quiet gentleness in Arbitr's movements, a heartbreaking tenderness that made the moment feel too intimate, too raw for the surrounding violence. His hand trembled slightly as he reached out and brushed a stray strand of her matted red hair away from her face. Her skin was pale—deathly pale—and smeared with grime and blood, yet Arbitr touched her as if she were made of glass, as if she were something sacred he could not bear to see broken.
"I'm sorry," Arbitr whispered.
His voice cracked around the words, rough with emotion, barely audible over the wind. It was the kind of sorrowful whisper that came from a place beyond pain—a voice stretched thin by guilt, by grief, by helplessness. Tears streamed freely down his cheeks, cutting thin, glistening trails through the drying blood and dust smeared across his face.
Sawyer could feel that pain—deep, piercing, and agonizing. It wasn't just something he observed; it pulsed inside him, echoing the hollow ache gnawing at his own chest. Arbitr's sorrow became his, a mirror to the despair swallowing him whole.
He was dying.
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Note: "Arbitr? Our hero doesn't seem to recognize this title, but the witches certainly do. It sounds… important. Like a job title you really don't want to lose. Also, note to self (and Sawyer): cursing, even in moments of extreme peril, can be surprisingly guilt-inducing for some. Who knew?"