Chase ran full-speed towards freedom, legs pin-wheeling so wildly that his feet scarcely touched the ground. Sure, the monster that was chasing him was only a few feet tall, but it was still a scary, sharp-toothed monster, and it still meant Chase harm. The nine-year-old didn’t register that he was bigger than it, that a square kick to the thing would gain him much more time. Chase wasn’t a fighter. He ran. And run, he did.

The thing was gaining ground on Chase as he broke through the tree-line, and Chase bee-lined for the bench where Gemma had taken her seat. The hot dog had bounced out of his pocket, landing in a rather large spot of sunlight, but Chase was too preoccupied with fleeing for his life to be bothered with turning back to get his lunch. Chase spied Gemma, and upon seeing her, he let out a yell.

“Ma-maaaa!” Chase yelled, “It’s going to eat me!”

The boy skidded around the bench and hopped onto it, using his mother as a human-shield as he gesticulated wildly towards the trees, “There’s a monster, a monster—and it’s going to eat me alive. It chased me all the way through the trees and it’s going to eat me and take my—“

Chase paused, feeling his pocket. The hot dog was gone.

“My hot dog!” Chase exclaimed, dismayed.

What once had been an ingenious idea to locate his prey was now turning against him. Climbing the tree had been very simple, but the process of going down had been too painful to be considered a safe landing. The stabbing pain now stretched from his feet to the tips of his ears and not even adrenaline could appease it completely. Still, under his fierce growls and strong mental orders, his feet obeyed without complaints.
The little time he used to get off of the tree slowed him considerably, and the extra time he needed to recover from the fall had left him far away from the boy. Gug still could see the figure of the child through the trees, but he was already outside the forest, Guglin was still inside and with each step his speed decreased more.

Until he finally realized that he could not reach the boy so the frantic race became a reluctant walk. When Gug reached the edge of the forest, the boy had disappeared once again, only that this time Gug suspected he was not going to see him again.
Standing in the shadows of the majestic trees, Guglin contemplated the empty place where they had fought for the food. He could almost see every move as if they were projected out of his head. Just when he remembered the time when the child kicked him in the face, he noted with amazement an object on the battlefield.

The desire to hunt returned to his body to temporarily soothe the multiple aches in his body to make them easy to ignore as just minor annoyances, then his whole mind concentrated on that small stick of meat and nothing else.
The magnetic pulses beaming from the food attracted him, without any chance to resist; he started to walk as his stomach responded to its calls making noises on its own. Before he knew what he was doing, his feet moved him away from the protection of the trees.

Moments later, all the feelings left his body. The millions of electrical impulses that traveled between neurons and nerves were solidified all together, capturing his thoughts in an impossibly long instant.
Her green skin quickly changed to black when all the cells in his body got charred at unison after a huge chain reaction. As the ashes of his skin were carried away by the wind, a dark grey skin appeared. What moment before had been a living creature was now a life size statue caught in the last expression and pose of the green mutant.

Chase was using his mother as a human shield, ragged breath gradually going steady as the little monster failed to make an appearance. Gemma hummed skepticaaly, tilting her gaze towards Chase, and Chase stared incredulously.

“Mom, I swear,” Chase protested, “It attacked me and took my hot dog. It was trying to kill me, Mama.”

“Took your hotdog,” Gemma articulated, quirking an eyebrow, “Chase, if you dropped your hotdog, I’ll get you another. No need for these wild tales.”

“No, Mom—I pinky-swear,” Chase protested desperately, “It was chasing me. It should be right there.”

The unoccupied stretch of glass mocked him, and Chase huffed.

“Come on, Chase,” Gemma urged her son, “Let’s go.”

“You believe me, right?” Chase murmured, jogging after his mother.

Gemma smiled, and gave an unconvincing, “Of course I do, darling.”

- END -