The wooden door crashed open.

There stood a figure with the blackness of night behind it. A solid silhouette against a lightning illuminated sky.

It waited for a moment, completely still as flashes of white erupted above and danced at its back.

Its head turned, unseen eyes poring over the small space ahead, catching glimpses of a long-forgotten hut as the flashes of lightning allowed. The creaking joints of a lost place lit for fleeting seconds by the electrified sky.

Scarce protection from the storm, but protection nonetheless.

A burst of rain rode the wild winds and lashed sudden, catching the figure off guard. It stumbled forwards bracing against the wooden door frame, bare hands sliding painfully across the rough wet of old timber.

Then movement. Quick, panicked movement.

Lurching inside, it flung the door back shut with an urgency that almost tore it from rusted hinges and slumped breathless to the floor, its back pressed against the time weathered surface of the hut.

It waited, and it listened.

A potent mix of sweat and rain ran freely from its sodden hair and stung its eyes. It wiped a muddy hand across them and winced. Its chest moved fast, rising and falling in double time, as cold breath escaped cracked lips and spiralled into the air.

It was fair to say that in his twenty years on the planet, Thomas Humbolt had enjoyed better days.

His eyes strained to see through the darkness, hoping to catch anything that would add some semblance of sanity to the current madness he was up to his neck in.

One minute lay upon his bed at home in the gentle Cornish countryside, mildly intoxicated on Rattlebones cider, powerful and cheap, just how he liked his drinks, slipping off into a sweet alcohol-infused slumber. The next, running for his life in a dark, storm shrouded forest in his pyjamas.

Concerns? He had a few.

‘Shit!’ Thomas shouted as a crack of thunder bellowed above, deep, clear, and given the circumstances, considerably more terrifying than it should normally have been.

Thomas pulled his knees in close to his chest like a child afraid of the terrors of the night. A second gunshot of thunder rang out, then slowly faded like the rumble of a thousand horses’ hooves galloping across the heavens. He closed his eyes tight as panic tightened his stomach.

Slow-moving minutes idled by but Thomas did not move. He couldn’t. Breathing in short, quick bursts, encouraged by this night of nights, his eyes were sealed shut. Inside his racing mind, the thoughts were frantic and fleeting, muddled and confused.

It’s a dream…bullshit…cheap scrumpy induced hallucinations…didn’t even drink that much…what was that noise!..stay calm, stay calm…I’m having a complete mental breakdown…please God I hope so…

He fought hard for control, knowing if his mind ran free there was no coming back. Trying to focus on the methods he had been taught for whenever an attack was at the door, he breathed in deep and held it. One…two…three…four. He exhaled slowly and repeated.

Lungful after lungful of cold, damp air entered Thomas’s body as he battled back from the brink of the attack that threatened to swallow him. His breathing slowed, the quick-moving chest eased off the throttle, and he slowly opened his eyes to the dark.

Squinting into the blackness, Thomas struggled to make out his surroundings.

It was small, that much was clear. A sudden realisation sprouted in his mind, Thomas had his back to the tatty wooden door of this place, a tatty wooden door unbolted to whatever it was he had seen walking out in the storm. That sprouting realisation quickly blossomed wholly horrifying branches that tore at his psyche once again, and he reached quickly to his side, fumbling for anything that might resemble a bolt. Scrambling seconds passed before his hand found metal, and awkwardly he pulled a stubborn lock into place. An unexpected, and welcome, wave of reassurance washed over him, as he returned to his knee hugging position upon the damp floor.

Gradually his eyes found sight within the confines of the dark hut. It was sparse. Some sort of plant life blanketed by shadow was growing in abundance through the ancient timber, and the ground of the hut appeared to have become one with the forest floor.

Thomas pushed himself up onto his feet. Cold joints ached as he rose and a wince escaped his lips. Soaking muddy pyjamas clung to his body and the cold suddenly hit him hard. Chills, razor-sharp and relentless, bit and tingled through his core. He began to shake uncontrollably under the weight of the night. Pulling his arms tight around one other in a solo bear hug intended to stave off the shakes he danced from one battered bare foot to the other, oblivious to the pain within them, searching desperately for any shred of warmth.

Above him the rain had intensified, drumming mistimed rhythms upon the hut’s roof with such a force it seemed it may give way at any moment. Brief flashes fractured the cracks in the timber as lightning and thunder marched overhead, but Thomas was elsewhere, blinded by the cold, a strange sight dancing in his muddied pyjamas, from foot to foot, slowly, ever so slowly, raising the temperature of his frigid core.

As he moved, he began to explore the space before him with frantic eyes, seeking anything that might add layers to his current underdressed state.

The darkness ruptured for a solitary second under a flash of lightning, and he caught a glimpse of something that instantly made him relinquish all thought s of the cold. A pair of eyes were staring at him from a darkened corner of the hut.

Thomas let out a shriek and stumbled backwards tripping over his frozen feet and landing flat on his arse with a dull thud.

‘Stay back!’ he yelled, fighting hard to deliver a tone of authority that was undone by the all too evident quiver and pitch of his voice.

There came no reply.

‘Who are you? I want no trouble. I just want to go home!’ Thomas shouted as he clawed and scurried back to his feet, heart hammering against his chest, body braced for attack.

Still no response.

He stared intently into the space that had been watching him, his wide eyes looking to pick out a form of whatever beast was breathing the same cold, stale air of the hut. The space was empty. Thomas took a couple of hesitant steps forward, body tensed in slim preparation to fend off the horror he was sure was about to leap forward, but nothing came.

His mind was racing again.

‘Come on! Get a grip! Get a sodding grip!’ he shouted angrily at himself and the current predicament.

Then with an evident crack of the voice, he mumbled, ‘I can’t just sit here waiting to freeze to death.’

His mind flooded again with fast flowing thoughts as he searched for a straw to grasp.

I’ve got to move, home can’t be too far...I must still be in Cornwall…Help must be close…This has to be some sort of episode…I’ve been stressed…Who wouldn’t be?

It was flimsy, Thomas knew it, but it was all he had and he was clinging to the notion for all he was worth.

The incoming tide of thought came to a sudden jolting stop.

Shattered by a bang on the door.

Next Chapter: The Flare