Charlie couldn’t hear a thud as his shoes met the road he was on—of the road he had never walked and did not recognize.

No owls hooted. No crickets sang, and the light of the moon faltered against the darkness, leaving only a sliver of road visible. Outlining the path, trees shook but made no sound, and moonlight ran though their branches, casting menacing impressions over the road.

The battering of wings was light, but against the silence, the sound  crackled like thunder.

Charlie turned. The path behind him was pitch-black. Darkness shielded the noise's source. He opened his mouth to say, “Hey, anyone out there? I need help,” but he produced no sound. He tried again.

Silence, and then a thump. Another. Shoes against the pavement rang out in a steady beat, growing louder as the distance between him and it shortened.

His breaths rose in miniature clouds, and Charlie tucked his hands into his jean pockets. “Hello?” he tried to yell. Again, no sound came.

It stepped from behind a veil of darkness. A shadow, the outline of a man but completely black, stepped toward him.

Fear froze Charlie's feet to the road.

Thump.

The shadow took another step forward.

Thump.

Another, until it was only inches away. Charlie tried to focus on its practically nonexistent face. It had no distinguishable features—no eyes, no lips, no nose—only impressions of them, sketched out in darkness.

The trees lining the narrow road shook once more, black birds ascend from the treetops, and a shiver rolled down Charlie’s spine as he suddenly knew there were more than birds hiding in the trees.

He turned his back to the shadow, but it grasped Charlie’s neck with its icy clutch, solid as stone. He pulled at its fingers to loosen its hold on him, but he was not strong enough to break its grip.

Trees knocked into each other as something approached. The walking shadow pressed its fingers deeper into his neck, and Charlie gasped helplessly--soundlessly.

A haze flowed over him, and memories began to swim inside his mind. Birthdays. Christmases. His dad. His mother and brother who had vanished like flames in the wind. Twelve years was a short life.

Charlie panted, and a light flashed as he plummeted onto the concrete. Sounds drifted through the air. Owls hooted, wind whistled, and Charlie heard his own gasps for breath as he scrambled to his feet.

A horde of shadows now swarmed from the trees like confused cockroaches, heading into the light of the road rather than fleeing from it, and Charlie sprinted, not daring to look back. He ran along the twists and turns of the narrow path, hearing the shadows' footsteps trailing him.

Charlie would have run until his legs gave out, until he could no longer move, but not being able to see more than a few feet before him, Charlie toppled face flat onto the ground and rolled into a ditch beside the winding road.

His face plopped into the mud, and murky water drenched his shirt and jeans. His shoes squished with every step, and as he scuttled to his feet, he listened for the shadows.

Their footsteps roared as they drew nearer.

His eye's caught tiny break in the forest. If he could wasn't seen veering off the road, the shadows might still head down road. He scrambled out of the ditch. A winding path, no wider than arm’s length, stretched into a thick forest and away from the road. Charlie did not hesitate to follow.

Charlie traced the twisting path beaten down by what must have been hobbit-sized travelers. The path was narrow, and even being as thin as he was, Charlie had trouble keeping to the trail. He pushed himself forward, and the trees began to grow more closely as he continued, and soon, the shadows cast by their leaves covered the forest floor, leaving Charlie in darkness.  The trail narrowed, making him sidestep to stick to his path. Squeezing between two trees that crossed and tangled together, he broke through to the other side, and the heavens opened up.

Behind thick clouds, the moon illuminated a hilly, treeless countryside. Charlie stopped again to listen for the shadows. Only the normal night sounds greeted him.

The sky closed like the shutter of a camera, letting only the narrowest beam of moonlight reach the ground. A few feet before him, the moon shined down like a spotlight onto a book, bound in leather.

The air stilled and Charlie held his breath, as he drew closer to it. He reached toward it, and with the most delicate touch of his finger, the book’s cover swung open. Its aged pages blackened, becoming nearly invisible against the night as the moon was swallowed by shadow.

A flock of ravens, black as the somber pages, sprang from the spine of the book. Their eyes burned like fire, and their caws carried across the scenery like chalk screeching across a blackboard. They spread their wings  as if asking Charlie to join them.

For a second, Charlie felt as though he could soar into the air like a lost balloon after them, but he stayed grounded. Something about the way the ravens’ caws carried across the entire landscape shoved Charlie into a state of fear worse than what he had felt for the shadows.

The ravens sliced through the air like a knives until they became only specs in the night sky and vanished.