"I'm sorry, but I'm going to need to stop you here," the stranger said, a sickly sweet grin spreading across her face. Liam stared at her in disbelief. Of course, this was happening. Hadn't he expected it the entire time? Yet, somehow, he had still been caught off guard.

Liam promptly forced his face into a frown, looking her over in the process. The redhead was short and thin, but she was armed with a bow and arrows, and she appeared to be stronger than him. "Not going to talk, are you?" she continued. "That's fine. You know what I want." She gestured for him to give her the medallion.

Instead, Liam took a step back, a quiet growl slipping from under his breath. He heard crunching in the grass, and he looked back to see that Nicole had run off.

"You should also know that I don't intend on wasting much time. You're all on your own now. I'll give you one last chance to make the right decision. It is two of us against one of you, right?"

". . . Two?"

As soon as Liam spoke, the familiar sound of something slithering across the ground echoed behind him. Once again, he turned around to find the boa constrictor from earlier, and to his horror, the vile creature shifted into a person.

The boy standing in place of the snake flashed him a toothy grin. "Like she said, two against one."

Blood pounded in Liam's ears. He had to get away. But the bird shifter was blocking him, and he had no idea how capable his opposers were at combat. Better than him, most likely. He glanced around the area for any other way to escape.

Time was running out.

"Hm, I suppose the kitty has made his decision," the bird shifter said. She took a few steps toward Liam. "I suppose we'll have to do this the hard-"

The stranger was interrupted when Nicole smacked her upside the head with a big stick.

Before she could react, Nicole pushed her to the ground and shoved a foot into her face. She screamed, grabbed a tuft of Nicole's hair and yanked her down to the ground beside her.

For a moment, both Liam and the other guy stood in shock as the girls fought. Then, the snake shifter tried to pull Nicole off of his partner. Liam pushed him off of her, before kicking his partner away from Nicole.

The two made eye contact, and Nicole gave him a small smile before mouthing a word. "Run."

So, Liam ran.

He sprinted past everyone and into the waterfall, exiting that world and entering his own. His enemies followed him soon after, their yells pushing him forward.

The city wasn't too far away, and the shouting voices behind him were becoming faint. He could make it if he ran fast enough. Thick layers of forest blurred past him as he ran. His legs felt like noodles, and the woods darkened around him. All he could do was run towards the light.

But then, the light died out. Liam stopped running. The city had vanished - no, everything was gone, leaving nothing but gray fog surrounding him. Had he been running the wrong way?

"Shit," he mumbled. He waved his hands around in the air. Weren't there trees there only a moment ago?

This wasn't good. He had to go.

"Hello?" said Liam. No, wait, not a great idea. That would only lead the enemy right to him. Should he start sprinting again? No way. He could run into the enemy. Discomfort rose in his chest, quickly turning into a panic until he heard something.

A voice. Yeah, that's what it was. Liam knew that voice.

"Hello?" he yelled. No response. "Hey, I'm right here! Where are you?" When he was met with no response, he repeated himself. Then, he heard them speak again, their words jumbled and incoherent. Liam turned and ran towards the voice. Little by little, it became louder and easier to understand, until their words rang out clearly through the fog.

Liam stopped and covered his ears. But their words repeated in his head, over and over again. They were so loud. They were so cruel. More voices emerged from the fog - the voices of people he knew. All of them mocked and chided him.

Numbness spread through Liam's body and he fell to his knees. The voiced surrounded him, now even louder than before."Shut up," he mumbled, over and over and over again, his tone getting louder with every second.

"SHUT UP!"

And all of a sudden, the voices died out.

The mist cleared away and was replaced by the familiar scene of the forest. The coldness affecting Liam before quickly vanished, and he stood back up and looked around.

What happened? What the fu-

A scream escaped his mouth when a sudden weight fell on him. He looked up in shock to see the snake shifter holding something sharp. A knife. Liam struggled to escape before the bastard bashed his head into the ground.

"Should have done this earlier," he heard his attacker say. The chain of the medallion left his neck, and cold, sharp metal replaced it. It tore through his skin, and he felt like his throat was closing up - he could barely breathe. The shifter placed his other hand on the other side of Liam neck, and made it even harder for him to breathe.

In one last attempt to escape, he scratched his attacker. The other shifter screamed in pain and anger, pressing his blade further into Liam's neck. His coughing stopped, and his eyes flickered open and closed before he squeezed them shut again in a final plea to forget his own impending death. To forget everything.

Because, after everything, the thing that scared him the most was that he didn't care that he was going to die.