Straight-Up Not Having A Good Time At Night Raven College: Prologue

Prologue Chapter 18: An Endless Hunt

"MYYYYYYYYYY....... STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONE!"

"Oh, SHIT," Kat swore, backing up.

The monster forced its shoulders and head back into the tunnel, scrabbling forward with an angry roar.

It tried to lunge, but Grim jumped out of her arms. He squeezed between Ace and Deuce's legs, blowing a fireball right at its nonexistent face.
It wailed, throwing its hands up and literally falling back from the tunnel.

Ace grabbed her wrist.
"COME ON!" He yelled, and she in turn grabbed Deuce by the collar.
Grim had already zipped past the creature, and Ace followed, stopping and shoving Kat out first.

This meant that Deuce went with her, but unfortunately she lost her balance, falling again.
Deuce yelped, grabbing onto Ace's leg. Once again, they all fell over like a chain of monkeys.

Rolling to her feet, Kat started running, with the boys hot on her tail and Grim ahead of them.
She checked her hoodie pocket-- sure enough, the stone was still there, pulsing with warmth like a heartbeat.

They ran back down the incline towards the cottage, where they all collided with the back wall, panting.

The angry bellow came again. Ace yelled in frustration, banging his head against the wall.

"God-- are you fuckin' KIDDING ME?!" He demanded. "It's STILL COMING?! How'd it shrug all that off like it was nothing?!?!"

The ground shook as the monster approached, an ominous silhouette casting a dark shadow.
"OOOOOOUUUUUGH....!" It gurgled. Apparently it had stopped to retrieve its pickaxe, which trailed behind it, leaving long drag marks in the dirt.
It was sloshing towards them determinedly, but in a...
In an almost limp-y way. If it had breath, it definitely looked like it was out of it...

".....Giiiiiiiiive....... GGGGGGGIIIIIIIIIIIVE BAAAAAAAAACK!"

Cursing, Deuce grabbed Kat and Ace by the backs of their shirts. He started to run again, back down the path the way they came.

"GRIM!" Kat yelled, holding her arms out. The little creature managed to jump into them just in time.

Shaking off Deuce's hands, she and Ace started running again. They tore up the path, but the thing was still in hot pursuit-- and, it could no longer be denied, gaining fast.

"Dammit," Deuce cursed, panting. "It's too fast-- at this rate, it's gonna catch us!"

No, Kat thought. It wasn't that it was FAST, it was that THEY were SLOW... Slower than they had been, at least. They were running out of steam...

Looking back, she saw the monster stumble for a second.... If anything without legs could really stumble.
Was it her imagination, or did it seem a lot... Smaller than it had before?

"Hang on," she muttered.
"Look at that-- it's disintegrating!"

"Huh?" Ace turned his head to look, too. "What are you--"
His eyes widened, and he almost tripped and fell before Deuce grabbed him.

Disintegrating wasn't exactly the right word... Maybe evaporating would be better.
Every so often, the black, gooey substance it was made of would start to sizzle like oil in a pan, bubbling away at the edges. It shrunk-- slightly but perceptibly-- every time.

"If we-- FUCK--!"
On her next step, her ankle wobbled like water, and she went straight down like a felled tree.
She managed to twist around mid-fall so as not to flatten Grim into roadkill beneath her.
He was okay, but the collision-- or maybe just all that fucking running she'd been doing all goddamn night... Had knocked the breath out of her pretty severely.