Prologue
The stillness of the night was interrupted by the shape of a running man. Moving towards the forest, away from the main road that led to the lights of the city, the man was running in a way that could best be described as unnerving, although even that wouldn't be saying enough. The terrible state of panic, in which he appeared to be, was the most obvious part of the whole picture, but hardly the most disturbing. Much more unsettling was the fact that he never even glanced back, to make sure whether he was still being followed.
Usually there are two reasons for people to run like that. The first - one is eager to get to what it is there ahead of him and of course has no need to look back. The second - whoever makes such a run from someone or something, is seriously scared and on a subconscious level knows, that if he turns and sees what it is behind, that had scared him so much, he wouldn't be able to move.
It was for the second reason the running man never looked back. But not even that, made what was happening so terrifying, it was the way the man was running. It seemed that he had no proper sense of direction, or resemblance of a strategy. Once stumbled, he would start running to the right, then for no particular reason he would turn to run to the left. If he happened to bump into a tree, he would take a few steps back and run into it again. He would do so several times, before finally finding his way around the tree. He was like a fly stuck behind the glass, aimlessly moving around, striking the glass with its head trying to find the way out. It was clear that the man was insane.
At last he could run no further, as the number of trees increased and number of hits increased with it. With the last struck he sat heavily on the ground and couldn’t get up anymore. All that was once human, had left his face. Every facial muscle was tightened, revealing bare teeth, like a mad dog. Eyes wide open and blood pouring down onto them, completed the mask of horror. He was sitting straight and staring ahead, when what seemed like involuntarily, by some force, he started to turn his head around. And then all what was left of this man was a scream, unending horrible scream, a scream that would give even the strongest of men nightmares.
Leaving this screaming thing sitting on the ground The Faceless Man turned to walk away.