(( Thanks. ))<br/><br/>Turin wasn't sure how but he managed to lose track of his Mistress on the way to the sprite village. He was cold, wet, and now hungry. The woods seemed so different when there was no light to shed upon the shadows. The wind and rain served only to hinder his hearing and vision. Turn circled in place, but no matter which way he turned nothing looked familiar to him. He shouted out his Mistress' name, but no reply could be heard. He shivered alone in the cold wind, hugging his arms close to his chest to keep warm.<br/>Suddenly he heard the sound of scratching against wood, like the noise of a large animal sharpening its claws. It rasped and chaffed at the bark of a tree to his right, further back in the woods. He looked but could see nothing. Turin knew there were no wild dogs in these woods, yet the sound came again, this time from behind him and getting closer. Whatever they were moved from tree to tree and scratched each one as it went by. It was like the sound of a cat scratching at a door, only this time it was a louder and far bigger creature. Turin began to run in fear of being stalked by drones.<br/>Whatever was stalking him was getting closer. The path was slippery from the rain, and as he ran downhill, he went faster and faster, jumping the knots of tree roots that burst through the path. Twenty yards ahead the path forked. He grabbed the bow of a small sapling and it flung him round and onto the right path. He laughed a little to himself and thought, I'll never be caught, by man or beast.<br/>Suddenly in front of him, only a few feet down the path, he saw something twitch in the darkness. Like black moving against black. Only light distinguishing the two. Immense, unseen claws frantically rasped at the wood, gouging deep wounds into the soft flesh, shredding the bark of an oak tree to his left. All around him, what little light he had, was being transformed into a deep black, sucked into a dark shape that now blocked his escape. The light was being stolen from the sky  and pulled into a dark shadow. A shadow that slowly  and meticulously began to take the form of a large black animal.