The creature struggled to get through the heavy scrub. It didn’t have the mental faculty to experience anything but panic. It just ran. Before it was a bog. Torn and desperate, it reached the marshy terrain through hawthorn and brambles. It jumped into the water and swam until it reached a small grassy islet.
For a short moment it paused, looking back, and to its surprise it heard, saw, smelled – nothing. Had the predator gone? The surge of panic hormones in its body made the creature reluctant to believe that. Yet, an unsettling silence pervaded this place. Instinctively it crouched so its silhouette would be less obvious to the pursuer while it listened and tried to catch a scent in the wind.
Nothing.
In front of it there was a stone, and on this stone it saw lines – strange lines – weird and unnatural – not something it would expect on a stone. The stone was grey. The lines were red.
As it looked closer the lines seemed to shift and writhe in its head, even though nothing moved on the surface of the stone. There was something about this stone that made the creature's head ache. It tried to look away, but the lines exerted a strange, mesmerising influence on it. The creature couldn’t look away. Slowly something formed in the brain of the creature, something that it hadn’t been able to cope with for a while now. Words.
And it took the stone in its hand and read the message that was inscribed upon it.