[ WP ] The year is 2085 , and God has finally gotten sick of our shit and begun the apocalypse . There are , zombies , werewolves , dragons , etc. , but the scariest beast of all is ... Your username . Write how it terrorizes humans .

We had survived everything else. 
 
 We'd read the stories and watched all the movies. The whole world already knew the lore about all those fairy tale baddies and their unsavory bumps in the night. We could fight them. What was n't expected was when the second wave came in to clear us heathens out. God had started using us against ourselves: nightmares created by plucking the ideas from our very psyches to taunt, torture and trim our numbers back to nothing. 
 
 Now the normal was n't safe. Across our landscapes, scraps of red cloth served dual purpose: to mark the boundary limits and to remind you of the death beyond. *Beware... Stay back!... Do n't expect to find help beyond... * was their silent mantra. Ponds, lakes, rivers and oceans. The fields whose tall grasses flowed like waves and even the shifting sands of the Sahara were home to the demons meant to destroy us. But we had to survive. It's what we do. The only safety we had was in numbers. 
 
 
 The last hunters had n't returned for days and in an attempt to score a fresh meal, I had taken matters into my own hands, putting on my boots and furs and headed for the woods. After a time, I had managed to wound a deer, it's blood allowing me to easily mark it's movement, yet hunger blinded my eyes from the warning posts I had foolishly passed in my chase. One bramble bush dis-entanglement later, I caught up to the trail where the canopied darkness cleared to open ground and I released I'd come too far. 
 
 
 Before me was the babbling of a stream and the growls of a she-cat dragging what *could* have been my kill from the shore and up into a snow-covered tree on the opposite bank. 
 I lowered my spear. A wounded deer I could handle, but open water was out of the question, much less a hungry mountain lion. Looking back the copse of trees was thicker than I remembered and I could no longer see the field beyond. I had chased far deeper than I should have. Cursing my stupidity, I turned back to find a way back when I felt it. 
 
 
 A cool, whispered breeze glancing across my ears, like the caress of a lover. It had this warm, soothing quality and with the soft babbling of the stream it reminded me of calm seas on a sunny day. The breeze calmed my heart and begged me to rest, to stay awhile before heading back. The calm was so complete that I missed the pair of sleek summer seabirds startled skyward from the shore to roost on the snow-covered pine branch. I stepped closer to hear it out and the whispered notes changed to a beautiful aria. 
 
 
 At first clear and proud, it rose and fell before finally dipping low into a single, solitary note. It felt so lonely... and then I did. The loss was so acute that I was forced to lock my knees to avoid crumpling to the ground. That low tone dragged every ounce of happiness out of me and pulled the seabirds squawking from their perch. 
 
 
 They dove towards me, swirling round in time to the beating of my heart, whipping up eddies of silvery-blue snow from the ground. Then they struck, their sharp beaks slicing across my arms, hands and face, forcing me closer to the darkness of the trees. Faster than my movements, their discordant cries incessantly mocked me as I tried batting them away. They broke away from me as the tone of the breeze grew louder. Was it thrumming or was it just the pounding of my own blood? I felt the blood mix with my sweat from their attacks as I had a short reprieve to take a fortifying breath. 
 
 
 Their cries grew shriller as the cold became sharper and I felt hatred sink through my flesh and creep closer to my heart. Eyes dashing from shore to woods looking I searched for a quick escape. There was no way in the seven hells I'd already lived through that I would go closer to their roost or whatever death they were leading me too. But they just would n't let up and dove at me once more. 
 
 
 A shout from across the river made them falter and break their dive. Another scared them back to their roost. Relief poured through me as I turned around and saw my messiah on the opposite bank, covered in furs, staff in hand, and wildly gesturing towards me. 
 Icy stream or killer birds? I took the stream. They met me half way, gripping my arm tightly to help me gain my balance in the water. Pulling down the scarf with the opposite hand revealed a strikingly beautiful face. 
 
 
 `` Lucky I was here, no?'' She smiled at me and helped me further through the stream. `` Them birds have been hunting along this stream for weeks now. Do n't you know this is past the boundary? Do n't you know what is out here?'' 
 
 
 `` Thankfully, you.'' I replied as I tilted my head to spy that the seabirds had born themselves from their perch and were now circling slowly like vultures above us. `` I would have been a goner had I traveled this stream alone!'' 
 
 
 `` But, you are alone.'' she smiled and glided effortlessly in front of me, blocking my path to the other side. 
 
 
 My smile of relief became strained and the chill in my heart became colder than the water currently up past my hips. Both of her hands had encircled my upper arms and were now gripping me like steel shackles. I thrashed to try to dislodge her and feet connected with something under the water. The hulking drift spun lazily towards the surface granting me a fleeting vision of one of the lost hunters whose face was frozen in a grimace of pain. 
 
 
 Pinning me under, her laugh was like crackling ice while the seabirds dove towards me like falling icicles. 
 `` Come join us down in the deep and rest your spirit for a spell.'' 

