remind me i'm [a l i v e] // {rowan/gavin}

Calloused hands gripped themselves for dear life as he ran. Each footstep came with a hastily taken breath of air, lungs already too filled with fear to make room for the air the rest of his body craved. The night sky made it hard for him to see, and the faint light given to him by the moon made shadows reach out and catch his feet to send him sprawling to the ground. He must have fallen a dozen time, and was, at that point, a vessel of scraped knees and palms, sweat, adrenaline, and yes, terror. His heart raced with the rest of him, just as desperate to escape the creature for which he had just saw.

It's eyes.

They were so cold, so angry, so hungry. They burned themselves into him, and he already knew that they would haunt his dreams for years to come. He could hear it behind him, feral snarls and growls of sadistic pleasure escaping from the home of jagged, sharp teeth the size of his little finger, and from the sounds, it only grew closer to him. He knew his efforts were futile, but what else was there to do but run? Give up? That idea had been passed up too many times before for it to even be considered an option now, so he just pushed himself to run faster, faster, faster.

---

"Damn it! They got another one! His father had stormed into the house, anger filling his voice. "These foxes, hunters, poachers, whatever the hell the are, have killed another one of our rabbits!" They raised them. When he was a kid, he always cried and begged for their lives, but with age he had gotten over them being killed, as it meant food for his own family. They had a few dozen, all trapped within a single acre of fenced land. They had to put mesh wire on the ground to keep them from digging their way to freedom, so escape wasn't an option. Besides, if they were going to escape, they would have by then, right? Even if they had been, it would have never explained the blood. Every time one went missing, a pool of scarlet was left in it's place, which mean the thing had either had it's throat slit and was taken away, or an animal had gotten it.

His father had took a drink of whiskey straight from the bottle and nodded to him. "You are gonna have to camp out down by the pins tonight. You hear anything suspicious- anything, you take this here knife-" He shoved the sheathed blade into his hand. "And you kill it. Understood?" Not exactly, but Gavin had learned a long time ago to just agree with his father in order to avoid violence, so he nodded quietly and headed upstairs to get the proper supplies.

At first, he didn't think anything would come. He sat in the dark, holding the small flashlight he'd stolen from his school up to a paperback book that once belonged to Rory. He was completely engrossed in it, so much so that he almost didn't hear the rustling of the bushes. He sat leaned against a tree, the fenced area directly in front of him. He thought he saw something just on the edge of the woods, but he wasn't sure. Squinting his eyes, he leaned in closer. He couldn't find the form again, but, certain he had seen something, he leaned forward more, trying harder to see inside the darkness.

When the thing popped out of the woods only a few feet away from him with his claws drawn and it's teeth shining in the fading light, he almost had a heart attack. He pushed himself back, slamming his head on the trunk of the tree while the thing inched closer, growling with anger. His hands blindly fumbled to his side where the knife was, since he hadn't thought of it until then, and he stood to run. Where the thing had popped up meant it was blocking the way back home, so his only option was into the woods. He didn't waste time weighing his options, and before too long, he was surrounded by darkness and the calls of insects, and nothing more.

---

This couldn't have actually been happening, could it? There was no way a wolf- an actual wolf was chasing him, right? It seemed so unlikely! They didn't even travel alone, did they? They traveled in... Packs. It was then that a new fear clawed his insides out, and then when he heard a sickening howl from his left, then another from his right. His throat tensed and he couldn't breathe anymore. If only there were some way for him to stop this, some way for-

Then, Gavin Barker got lucky. Gavin didn't get lucky, typically, so for a second he thought he was imagining the porch light that he saw in front of him, but as he drew closer, he became more and more sure that there was an actual house in his path, and that told him he still had a chance. He could still hear the faint pitter patter of paws against the dirt, which sounded so clean and so practiced against his clumsy, fatigued stomping, and the steps sounded so close he could have expected a sharp pain in his leg at any moment, but it never came.

In a matter of seconds, he was on the porch, and slamming the door shut behind him, not daring to stand next to it. He barreled forward further into the house, faintly aware of someone watching him but not caring enough to notice them until his back was against the wall facing the door. His green eyes were wide with terror, curly brown hair filled with twigs and leaves, his pants stained from dirt and grass, and his heart from almost dying. Refusing to take his eyes off of the door, he spoke, his words coming out in haggard sighs between his heaves of breath.

"I... was almost... a pack... of.. wolves...tried to eat me!"