Shadowy pine grazes me as I huff, pushing my legs faster and faster. Leaves that barely flutter on the ground, dry and still, are thrust into the blistering wind at my back with a kick of my feet. The brush of leafy green and the sting of sharp stones cutting into my hooves are forgotten, slammed into the far reaches of my mind as I fix my gaze ahead of me and feel claws begin to grasp at my lungs, already burning with exhaustion.
     The trees urge me on, whispering their warnings and gently nudging me as I tear past them, trying not to think about what I was racing against, what was not far behind. But what I can hear as I leave all that I can to my wake is enough: the soft murmurings of the trees I had passed only moments before are choked and cut away, a wrathful hiss and then malicious crackles replacing them. The dark presence of something blisteringly ominous laps at my heels as I bolt, further and further into the foliage. The air and sky above grows thick and heavy with something grey like shadow, clouding my lungs and biting my eyes. Tangled vines above, twisted and twined within the arms of the oaks and maples, snag at my antlers, pleading with me to stay and share their fate. But I shake them off vigorously and rush past, sensing that every second lost was a second given so very generously to the monster sprinting to reach me, to claw me, to consume me.
     Another moment is snatched as my front hoof lodges itself underneath a root protruding out of the dark dirt, and I stumble to find my footing for another dangerous moment. Even doing so, I stiffen, instinctively bracing myself for the searing pain that was sure to follow the lost time.
     Almost instantly, a sickening crack sounds above and a branch, already consumed in the monstrous tongues of red and orange, crashes to the leafy bedding of the forest floor. Panic flares up in my chest and I rear up onto my hind legs, fear blinding me for a moment just before the sinister warmth creeps toward me, threatening to swallow me whole as well.
     I snort and swivel away from the heat as fast as I can, snapping out of my panic and pounding once more swiftly about the doomed trees and over rotted logs. Fire begins to threaten me from the inside as my breaths become rasps and my lungs begin to give out. But I persist, my eyes fixed on a wall of greenery ahead, a large bush that hailed the sky and that would give me protection, at least for a couple of minutes, from the raging beast behind.
     I burst through, releasing another short pant, and crash to the other side in exhaustion. As I heave in long breaths, taking the small moment to rest before a sure attack would burn through the tall bush and reach me, a pained sight reaches my eyes.
     A steep rocky side of a cliff is what I am standing on, and to leap would mean almost certain death. But I look back, for just a moment, and I know that I am blocked; I have nowhere else to turn to without greeting the fire with a warm hug and a death kiss. My breath comes to me painfully, but even trying to decide what to do, I already hear the hisses and crackles of the beast burning through the bush I had torn through; it would not take much more before it made its way through that appetizer and reached its main course. But the only refuge I see is a very long bound away across the divide to another, safer bunch of trees. A very long spring away, it seemed almost impossible to be able to reach with my spent, tired legs.
     But as I hear the fire busting through the bush, burning down every little branch and leaf in its path, I know that it’s my only chance. I stand firmly and back up as much as I dare to the burning bush, refusing to look down even for a moment into the sharp, rocky ravine, and I fix my gaze ahead, my legs shaking and blood roaring in my ears. My legs tremble with tiredness, but I pay them no mind.
     And, as the bush behind me bursts into flame and the claws of fire grasps vainly out to me, its fingers aching for flesh, I run and push myself as hard as I can off the cliff face, narrowly avoiding the licking tongues of fury.
     I leap.