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Toby Rogers had a tendency to flee into the woods behind his house. He and Lyla-when they were younger of course- would spend hours wandering around. They would play pretend and chase each other around until the sun would start to set and they had to go home. Even after they outgrew that phase in their childhood, Toby would often find himself in the woods. If his father was being particularly loud, if he needed a bigger space than his room to spin around and let loose, or even if he was just bored.
Though at the current moment, Toby Rogers had no time to think about that. He could still smell smoke and hear the sirens behind him which automatically meant he wasn’t far enough. He didn't have time to think about his mom, Lyra, or his father. Not that he could focus on those thoughts if he wanted to, what with the overwhelming buzzing in his ears getting louder and his vision getting hazier with each passing moment. He was oblivious to any aching in his muscles, thank God, but he could certainly tell his body, or at the very least his consciousness, was giving out on him. His vision was tunneling, and he could feel his tight grip on the hatchets he'd been carrying start to loosen.
At this point his legs were moving on autopilot, he wasn’t even noticing the cobwebs getting caught in his hair or the branches on the ground scratching his legs.
As to be expected when running through trees, his foot caught on a jutting tree root, sending him sprawling forward. He crashed into the debris that littered the forest floor, struggling to push himself back into a standing position.
But the incessant droning and staticky feeling pervaded Toby's head, making him too disoriented to stand back up. His hand flew up to his mouth as he coughed loudly, reflex tears pooling around his eyelids. He continued to hack, a hot metallic liquid rising in his throat. His body acted out repeated harsh movements that would have hurt anybody else but him.
He gasped for air, managing to get himself leaning against the trunk of the tree he tripped on, before laying his eyes on that…thing, the thing that’s been haunting him. It just stood there a few feet away, amusedly waiting as he fell forward again, steeling himself on his hands and knees and watching the blood splatter onto the dirt. It still didn’t move. Toby collapsed completely, no longer coughing.
Toby figures he must have zoned out again.
He wasn’t, then he was. And he was still in the forest, albeit an unfamiliar area of it. The sun was starting to set, long shadows cast by the trees projected onto the undergrowth, he had lost quite a bit of time. In front of him was a mansion. It looked like it could have been considered “luxury” at some point in the past, though now not so much. The third-floor windows were unusually opaque and broken in a few places, Virginia creeper vines climbing up most sides of the building. The wood didn't exactly look stable, and several steps to the front porch had holes where somebody had stepped through them. He knew that he was much farther out in the woods than he was used to, but even then, he would have known about something like this if it had always been there, surely someone would have mentioned it at some point.
Toby would have assumed it was abandoned, were it not for the yellow lights coming from the other side of a few windows, off-white curtains obscuring any further details. He habitually gnawed at his fingers, peeling skin away from nail beds as he weighed his options. He was just some kid covered in blood and forest debris. Anyone in their right mind would call the police on him as soon as they answered the door. A twitching teen covered in blood would look suspicious to anyone. But it was getting dark, and he needed to go somewhere. Besides, it didn’t seem to Toby that someone in their right mind would live in a place like this, anyway. He trudged up the wooden steps onto the mansion's front porch and hesitantly knocked on the door.
The forest felt quiet, then he heard some commotion behind the front door before it swung open. A stocky brunette man in a blue flannel and dark, old work pants stood before Toby, holding a metal baseball bat in a ready-to-swing position. He squinted at Toby, not looking nearly as concerned as he should have been, while Toby awkwardly looked back and forth between the man and his bat. He quickly cracked his neck a couple of times and continued staring at him. After a few moments of consideration the man at the door let his bat rest at his side, he sighed and glanced behind him.
"Brian! There's another one!" He looked back to Toby. "Just...come on in, I guess." And without another word, walked back into the cabin, leaving the door open for Toby to follow through. He debated leaving and running off back into the woods, but the fuzzy feeling in his head and the buzzing in his ears was returning, making it too hard for him to think properly. So reluctantly, he entered the mansion, shutting the door behind him. He made sure to keep a white-knuckled grip on the sharper of his hatchets.