For Nevermore Season 1

from Randy. Anything that dampened her speed would spell her certain doom.
    “Noella!” Randy continued to scream as leaves crunched and branches snapped on the forest floor behind her.
    She pushed herself faster, through the woods as curling branches reached from the trees to claw at her skin, drawing thin lacerations on her arms and face as rocks and underbrush threatened to trip her every step.
    Noella’s legs were on fire and her breath was ragged, but she kept moving, pushing herself too fast to think. She wanted a moment to stop, to evaluate her environment and find a way to lose Randy, but couldn’t afford to turn back and see how close he was.
    The snapping branches and footfalls were growing louder and closer.
    She pressed herself to move faster, and then it happened — the cramp she feared stabbed her right calf. She tried to keep moving, but couldn’t, then fell to the forest floor, thankful it was covered in a carpet of leaves.
    Her gratitude lasted only a second as Randy’s footsteps turned to thunder.
    He stopped, then leaned over, hands on his knees, his right hand holding his pistol, as he tried to regain his ragged breath. He looked up at Noella, his eyes glimmering in the double moonlight like a hungry wolf.
    “What did you do? Where are we? What are you?”
    She tried to stand, but her leg spasmed, then sent her back to her butt, hunched over, pressing her fingers into her right calf as she tried to work the cramp from her leg. Noella said nothing.
    “I asked you a question,” Randy pointed the gun at her, shaking it for emphasis. “What the hell are you?”
    “I’m just me,” she said.
    “No, you’re some kinda freak! Some kinda monster or something.”
    Monster? Hello?
    Pot meet kettle!
    Noella said nothing; shaking, too scared to provoke him. She would milk the moment as long as she could, searching for a way out. Noella wondered if she could cross back home and leave him behind.
    “Are you a witch? Some kinda Satan worshipper or something? Would explain all the black clothes.”
    There was an idea bubbling to the front of her mind that might work, though it could also make Randy more inclined to shoot her. But since she couldn’t stand, much less run, she had to try something.
    “I’m not quite a witch,” she said, slowly, elongating each word as much as she could, both to buy time to heal, and consider what she would say next. She paused, waiting to see if he’d take the bait.
    He did. “Keep going,” he said, now standing, slightly more relaxed.
    “Have you ever heard of fairies?”
    Randy laughed, and she could already see where his juvenile mind was going.
    “Not that kind of fairy. The magical kind.”
    “You mean like the little flying things. Like Tinkerbell?”
    “Sorta, except they’re not little. Or I should say, we’re not little. We’re magical beings, though we look like humans.” She watched Randy’s eyes, hoping he wouldn’t realize she was pulling her story from thin air in a desperate buy for time. He waited for her to continue, though his amused smile seemed to be fading.
    “I’m not from your world, Randy. I’m from here,” she said, waving her arms through the air, then pointing at the sky to remind him of the two moons above them. “I came to your world long ago.”
    “Why?” he asked, apparently buying every word.
    Um, why, Noella? Think, think!
    “I can’t say why,” she shook her head. “It’s a secret, even to me. But I do know one thing. . .”
    As she paused, she stretched her leg a bit, to see if it would support her if she were to leap to her feet. The moment her muscles flexed, the pain returned; a shooting intensity that felt like liquid fire.
    Crap.
    “What do you know?” Randy said, his voice suggesting he was growing tired, or perhaps skeptical of her story. Or maybe he figured out what she was trying to do.
    Double crap.
    “If you kill me, you’ll never get home,” she said. “And if you kill me, I’ll haunt you forever.”
    Randy stared at her, entirely silent as he inched toward her.
    Noella’s right hand dug into the cold dirt beneath the leaves.
    Leaves crunched under his boots as Randy stopped just inches from her, staring down, close enough for her to smell Old Spice and the stale stench of beer on his breath.
    Her fist filled with cold soil.
    He aimed his pistol at her. “You freak.”
    Noella threw the wad of dirt at Randy’s face, striking him in the eyes. She expected his gun to go off that