Redhawk Caldera stage 2: anger

The shadows crowded him as he ran. He did not know why he ran so hard! But it felt familiar and it felt necessary. Winter's breath haunted his heels, and when he gathered the wits to look back over his shoulder he saw bearing down upon him all teeth, all eyes, darkness, ravening —

He was alone. Alone? Swinging his awareness back and forth, up among the trees which shuddered to the wind and groaned at him, and down to the cold earth where he thought he saw red buds popping up, as if spilling from the aether, growing from puddles of shadow and blood; poppies, opening as he stumbled and lurched.

A thought occurred to him: a memory? The feeling of being so small! He didn't like it. There were broken words in his ears, telling him who was really to blame! Telling him of himself, loudly, so it was all he could hear. Titmouse wheeled one way and then another as he snapped at the air, willing the voice to stop stop STOP!

BE QUIET! The world quaked with the ferocity of his panic, and he blinked his one eye at the trees, offended by the sound of his own voice yet wholly unaware he was the source of it. A sob pulled up and out of his chest, and again he was running! Always running, even if he could barely control the contortion of his legs.

Somewhere deep in his memory Titmouse knew these hills.