He woke with a start and sat blinking, trying to conjure reason out of the cold and dark air. His lungs burned as though from some deep-seated respiratory infection, and his feet were a throbbing mess, tacky with blood. The light around him was negligible, and although he had hoped for a moment that it was dawn, he knew now it was not. Knew that he had slept for minutes rather than hours, and the night still held the land in her silent, black fist. The only light was that of the stars, burning their thin alien light down upon the land. He was burrowed in under a fallen spruce and he was very cold, and as his consciousness returned, so too did his panic, for he could hear the sound of something making its way along the pine needles of the forest floor.

Something was coming toward him in the woods.