Meadow

When Boone had woken that day with the taste of blood in his mouth and his tongue sore and swollen, he'd groaned. The next few days would be telling: either the episode would pass over him like clouds, or he'd be in for a week of night sweats, restless legs, and a brain that tormented him every moment, waking or sleeping.

Then night came, and the first involuntary twitch of his eyelid told him all he needed to know. He would not sleep tonight; if he tried, he would gasp awake every hour with the sound of screams ringing in his ears: her screams.

So Boone rose from his soft bed of moss in the woods, and walked. It did not matter where he went, only that his legs were moving, and the dark scenery changed from forest to open meadow and back again without him registering any of it. He only paused once, briefly roused from his fugue state by the tinkling of a stream, to drink until his throat ached, before continuing on.

Halfway through the night, he began to mutter to himself, and by the time dawn broke his blue eyes were rimmed in red. His body sagged from fatigue, but he would not stop till exhaustion had pulled him to the ground. He knew from past experience that doing so was the only thing that would snap his brain out of its funk.

But then he walked straight into something as wide two tree trunks strapped together—something that stunk of stallion—and something within him broke. He snarled, his hooves and teeth flashing and his blue eyes wide and glazed as he scrambled backwards, out of striking range.

He looked at the huge stranger, his gaze faraway and his white face sunken, and saw someone else. "It's you—you killed her," he said, his voice like sandpaper.