• Feet pounding against the rocky, hard-packed dirt of the dead forest, she ran. She ran like her life depended on it. It did.

    Her lungs cried out for air and her legs burned with acid, but she dared not stop; the chase was not over yet, she was not safe. They were still behind her, their high-pitched hunting laughs weaving around the burned-out trunks and dry, cracked branches.

    Her enemy knew the territory better than she did, but she possessed something that they did not. It was of no help here, for the dead forest was too thick with charred trees to use it, but perhaps the chance would come when she could, and escape her pursuers.

    The thought flitted about in her head for an instant before abandoned to the mind-numbing exertion of the chase. As she ran, a rushing sound began to filter through the trees. It was a heavy, bassy, unpredictable sound, shifting and booming and hissing. The forest started to thin, and the sound became louder and louder until even the hunters' shrieks were drowned out. This made the runner uneasy, for she realized that it would be harder to hear the hunters coming.

    Suddenly the forest ended, and she was blinded by the bright unbroken expanse of sky before her. Her steps faltered, and she almost stumbled before her feet caught her again, running full tilt.

    She saw the edge to late to stop herself, half-blind as she was. The rushing sound had been the sea, slamming and whirling around the half-exposed rocks at the base of the cliff. She was only six feet away from the brink of the enormous drop-off, and still running. She skidded to a halt as soon as she realized, but the loose dirt and pebbles scattered treacherously under her feet. She fell backwards, and slid off of the edge screaming.

    The hunters appeared out of the dead forest, crying their screechy laughs as they shook their twisted spears. They were surprised to find their prey missing, having expected her to have stopped when faced with the cliff. Several pressed their noses and hands to the ground, trying to pick up the scent of their prey as they sniffed around the forest boundary.

    One of the trackers cried out, and the rest fell behind as he followed the scent trail across the cliff and to the edge, where the disturbed dirt and rocks marked the runner's fall.

    The trackers paced along the edge, snuffling and whining. They had lost their prey to the air and rocks below. The Alpha would definitely not be happy.

    One of the more observant hunters yipped in alarm. There was something big in the air below the edge, its massive wingspan wobbling ever so slightly in the uneasy drafts above the rocks.

    It was the runner, the flier. Giant hawk wings, dappled gold and brown, grew from between her shoulders, lifting her into the sky and belying her as anything but ordinary. Slowly she circled her way up the nothingness besides the cliff, climbing the turbulent air that shifted with the sea.

    Reaching the top of the cliff, she found the hunters gathered at the edge, stock-still and beady eyes wide with shock. She laughed, and swooped over their heads in a sudden burst of merriment, clipping ears with feather-tips. Then she turned and winged her way over the dead forest, away from the cliff and towards the faded moon.