This is my entry for Weekly Wattpad Contest #55
Contests

The forest seemed to have swallowed her whole. It opened its wide jaws, the trees jutting outwards and branches hanging down like teeth. In one swift motion, the girl stepped into the impenetrable darkness that lay beyond the first line of growth.

The group that was following her, a vicious mob of townsfolk, entered the forest shortly behind. Their shouts infested the night air like mosquitos. With every whip of their tongue, another bite was made at the girl's flesh. Even if she were to escape, the blood that had been sucked from her would never return. She would never be the same. She had been infected, possessed by a creature none of them could truly understand.

Yet William still loved her.

In the darkness between the trees, he recalled a singular moment that had occurred several weeks ago. It was like a long forgotten dream, his memories forged out of his own imagination.

The girl was standing there, her eyes begging him to come closer. The trees were barren from the winter and the moon shone brightly down from the heavens. "William," she whispered so quietly it could have been mistaken for the wind. "Come closer."

William stepped forward carefully. In the silence of the night, he could hear only the leaves as they crunched underneath his feet and his heart, hammering incessantly against his chest. The moonlight framed her face. It accentuated the sharpness of her jaw and the deepness of her eyes. Her skin bore the color of snow, pale and slightly blue as it reflected the color of the sky.

She reached out her hand and William allowed her to trace his face with her delicate fingers. He could feel her breath along his neck, warm against the coolness of the winter around them. Slowly and carefully, her breath and his became one in the night.

As William tread deeper through the trees, a new fear creeped into him. It was slow at first, barely noticeable, like the the first few drops of rain before a storm. But the feeling was heightened when the group saw another flash of the girl's dress flapping behind her.

William was suddenly aware that he was terrified, not for the town, but for her.

As time passed, the night only seemed to grow darker. The stars that had once dotted the sky, lighting the path in front of them, had all burnt out. The bitter wind that seeped through their clothes bit deeper into their flesh. The trees had grown more sinister and the undergrowth wrapped themselves around their ankles.

It was then that she had gotten stuck, the hem of her dress caught in the arms of a bush. It was then that William saw her face, a deer caught in a trap. The underworld was no longer present in the darkness of her pupils. William saw only a girl, beautiful and innocent, her face pale and bright in the light of the moon.