Heron Lake Plateau your shadow weighs a ton

Teeth met shadow, and the stranger expected his assault to do nothing; he expected, maybe, even that he might meld with the darkness and have it overtake him. He wanted that most of all — to be asleep, to be taken back and to have the days start again, as they had in the many hours before he had initially woken. He wanted the coma to return to him (without realizing of course, that it was a coma that had saved him from dangerous harm to the brain, or that he had been hallucinating all of those deep dream-states, one after another). 

Most of all, he wanted to protect Niamh. He had seen her die — he had seen Ceara die too — and when he looked at the shadow, the stranger saw only the melting ink-face of the child at the lakeside.

It was Screech's teeth that met resistance first. Screech's tongue that tasted blood, and ears that heard the screams. The ensuing chaos pulled the stranger from his assault; Ceara at his forequarter proving how alive she was with a strong grip to his scruff, Niamh bowling in to his ribs. He was sent tumbling and sprawling sideways, where the body hit the dirt and the breath wheezed out of him; with it went the urge to protect Niamh, and he could only stare sidelong and wild at the towering bodies looming over him.