It happened too fast to focus on the details. Alex found himself running through a pine wood, chest hot and heaving. He gasped for breath as he sprinted through a shallow stream. The fierce cry of the Mogalacryn always right behind him — a blend of a buzzard’s shriek, the hissing of a viper and the scream of countless miserable people. Alex was just a boy when the Mogalacryn found him and began the chase. He was then youthful and hopeful that it would eventually go a different way, maybe chase some other poor soul. He still had plenty of energy as he leapt over roots and pits. That being said, he never had the gumption to look directly at the thing. He could only see its obsidian-shaded tentacles as they were just out of reach in his peripheral. As he ran he looked down at his hands — they were bigger, his clothes were tight, his head filled with half memories of school days and people he couldn’t rightfully identify. The sun of the day beamed down, making him angry. Still the Mogalacryn was just behind him. It was when he was a teenager that he first encountered the first village of Prem — smaller, meek people-like creatures, weak and trusting. They all wore plum hats and bonnets and lived in twig-crafted homes. He didn’t stop to speak or to learn his ways. Yet as he re-entered the woods on the other side of the village, he heard the Mogalacryn burst into the village and eat and destroy and obliterate. At first, Alex screamed with guilt. But he realized that as the Mogalacryn ate the Prem, he was able to catch his breath for the first time in years. After a few moments though, he heard the coming of the monster once more and he ran again. After the second or third village, his guilt faded and realized it was the only way for him to survive. He looked down and the veins of his hands began to come through. A beard now brushed against his sternum. His speed had slowed. He depended on the villages of Prem more and more. An image of a woman, of a house, of a dog sparked in his mind. But all that would have to wait until after the Mogalacryn left. At one point, he came across a village of Prem and saw they were armed. “The Harbinger comes! Doom is right behind him!” he heard one of their little voices cry. Yet he did what he needed to do to survive and soon enough he would hear their screams as the Mogalacryn consumed. The Prem then began to throw spears and rocks at him as he came, but he soon learned how to dodge them and evade and deliver the Mogalacryn right to them. At this point the wrinkles on his hands were significant, and any guilt or horror he had for using the Prem was gone and replaced with anger and raw instinct. There were images of people and places and children he may have known, or may not have, in his mind now, but he didn’t have time for any of that. It was only survival now. Years and years passed. His hair went gray. His running slowed, yet the Mogalacryn never caught him, but it consumed all the Prem. Finally, the woods ended and there was a massive, endless clearing before him. Behind him the trees burst into smithereens. He stopped running to face it, what was left of him totally consumed by fear. He had no more strength to run. It was bigger than he ever could have imagined, even after all those years. Pieces and shards of the Prem villages covered its true form, making a massive, shifting, oozing thing coming right for him. And to his right and left he saw the people he thought he might’ve noticed but didn’t have time for to to his left and to his right, some giving him pitying faces, others refusing to look at him directly as the Mogalacryn finally reached its destination.