Panic was steering the ship.
She knew it. Aurelia knew it. The panic was a living thing in her chest, massive and loud and producing a heartbeat so fast her ribs were vibrating. The panic was telling her legs to run and her legs were obeying and the obeying was survival but the survival was directionless because she was running through a jungle she had never been in toward a destination she could never find while the things behind her were faster and older and could smell fear the way wolves smelled prey.
Aurelia: Turn. Left. Now.
She turned left. A vine caught her shin. Her foot hooked under a root that was raised just enough to catch a boot moving at speed and whose catching was total.
She went down.
Face first, driving the air from her lungs in a single forced exhale that left her empty and gasping on the jungle floor.
