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The next morning, Karena found that Shawn hadn’t woken her up despite her asking him to. Frustrated, she turned over to where he’d been, only to find that he was sound asleep. There hadn’t been anyone on watch last night.

Karena shook Shawn awake. “Why didn’t you wake me up for watch last night?” she said.

“There isn’t any point in a watch,” said Shawn. “What are we going to do, defend ourselves?
When he wants to finish us off, he’ll finish us off. In the meantime
, there’s no reason for us to be wasting hours where we could be sleeping just watching the forest to see if he’ll appear.”

“But isn’t that giving up hope?”

“Not necessarily,” Shawn said.

The day went much the same as the day before, except that this time they were travelling through the forest rather than through the large, open field, and thus there was less of a sense of urgency.
Since they weren’t near the road, the going was easier. And if they were to come across someone, then there were lots of places they
could hide now, unlike where they were before
.
But the dread still hung over everything like a dark cloak, and Karena was constantly trying to remind herself that their chances weren’t actually better in the forest, but rather they just seemed better. And that didn’t mean anything.

However, t
hey didn’t come across anyone the whole day, which was even strange
r
then yesterday. Of course, Karena remembered, the reason they’d left to go into the forest in the first place was so they could get away from all the Sandmen, but it still seemed strange that there were absolutely zero here, especially when he knew where they were the whole time.

The next day they continued on their journey. Karena had no clue whether they were going north,
south, east
or west, since she’d never really bothered to learn how to determine that sort of thing with
out a compass,
but it hardly mattered anyway.
All she knew was that she was heading away from the city.

That same day, something strange happened. Of course,
everything that had happened since Karena had woken up as an 11 month old all those years ago had been strange, and really this was not very strange compared to some of the other things that had happened. But nonetheless it happened and so it’s worth talking about.

Karena and Shawn stumbled into a clearing in the forest. But the most significant thing about this clearing was the fact that in the center of it was a small cottage. At first, Karena was so shocked that she didn’t react at all, but after a moment she backed away and fell back into the cluster of trees.

“We need to get out here,” Karena said, turning around and heading back the way they’d come. “There could be someone in there.”

“Hold it, wait,” Shawn said. “If there isn’t someone in there, then it could be a perfect place of refuge for us.”

“But if there is a Sandman in there, then we’ll be killed.”

“Not necessarily. We can always fight our way out.”

“Unless he decides to kill us.”

“You’re putting the cart before the horse.
I say we should check in there
first. If we can take refuge there we’ll at least feel safer than we would sleeping out in the open, even if we aren’t really safer.”

Karena scoffed. “What’s the point of that?” she asked.

“It might be worth it. Would you rather spend the last few days of your life out in the woods or in a cottage? We need to rest some anyway, at least for a few days. Then we can move on again.”

Karena thought about this. “It’s risky.”

“No it isn’t. You’re thinking about it the wrong way. Whether we go in there or not, he’ll kill us whenever we wanted to. Really it’s a matter of ‘Why not?’”

“Okay, fine,” Karena said, once again trusting Shawn’s logic.
She slowly moved forward into the clearing, looking cautiously around for anyone.
Not seeing anyone in her direct surroundings, she went up to the window of the cottage and peered inside. There was
a small table with a couple of seemingly rickety chairs around it, but other than that it appeared to be vacant of both people and furniture. The whole inside looked run down, as if it had been abandoned for a long time, and Karena felt a surge of hope. Maybe no one had actually lived here when the Sandman had taken over everyone. Maybe this place had been abandoned for decades, because that’s certainly what it looked like.

Karena moved around to the front of the cottage and opened the door, which wasn’t at all very secure on its hinges.
She stepped inside, making a mental note that they could fix things up such as the door if they did end up staying here, which didn’t seem like a bad option.

The cottage in total consisted of two room
s
, a main room that was bare save the table and chairs, and a bedroom with a rickety bed that didn’t have any covers on it save a single torn up cloth that had clearly been a feast for moths for a while. At first she saw no bathroom, but with further exploration she found an outhouse on the other side of the clearing.

“It’ll do, I suppose,” Karena said. “It’s certainly better than sleeping outside. The only thing I’m worried about is that we’re not yet far enough away from the city.”

They were sitting at the table, having a meal. “We’ll be fine,” said Shawn. “Or at least as fine as we can be, which isn’t really fine at all, but we’ve already accepted that.”

Karena nodded glumly and took another bite of the energy bar she was eating.
She’d grown used to not talking when she was with Shawn, and so it wasn’t awkward as they sat there in silence, eating, just waiting for the inevitable to happen, though they had no idea when it would happen.

After dinner, Karena went to the bedroom. Shawn had said he was fine sleeping without a bed, since she was bigger anyway and would need it more than he did. Once again, she felt slightly guilty but
she was too anxious to argue with him. Maybe they could take turns. She’d tell him that the next day.

But a single night can bring a lot, especially when you aren’t expecting it to.

Karena lay awake, something that hadn’t happened in a few nights, strangely. She’d been sleeping on the ground in the forest for three nights, and for the first t
ime in years she’d slept sound as a baby
.
Or at least and actual baby, not an adult in the form of a baby.
Yet now that she was sleeping in a bed again, she was restless. Granted, the bed wasn’t excessively comfortable, and neither was her cot in the orphanage, yet she suspected it was som
ething else. It was too ironic.

She rolled over for the umpteenth time and stared at the wall. There was a window on the opposite wall, and she’d been keeping
an eye on that for a while, but she remembered what Shawn had said that morning about them not even needing to take a watch. It was pointless, and so she gave up on the idea and decided to legitimately try to get some sleep.

But sleep would not come. Legitimately trying to get sleep wasn’t something she’d done for a while, and so she’d assumed it would work now. However, she was wrong.
It is always annoying when your brain simply decides not to let you fall asleep when you especially need some. But she had a feeling that
something was going to happen, something big, and very soon. Just like when she couldn’t sleep back in the orphanage because she’d sensed something big, and then could sleep afterwards. But everyone in the world becoming the Sandman wasn’t the only big thing. There was something else that was going to happen,
and it wouldn’t be long before it did.

Karena rolled over again.
The forest beyond the clearing was pitch
black, and so she couldn’t see anything out the window except for very vague shadows. It was just the conditions
in which
the
Sandman would want to strike
, Karena realized.

Karena felt a small breeze coming through the
window. She lifted her head slightly, enjoying the feel of it blowing softly through her hair. But as she raised her head higher, she felt it faintly against her check. Something solid, something that wasn’t air. She quickly lowered her head back to the
pillow, the rapidity o
f her breathing increased. Looking up at where her cheek had been, she saw nothing.
There was only one obvious conclusion to make.
He was both invisible, and in the dark.

Karena slowly backed away,
scooting along the thin mattress.
She had to get to Shawn and tell him, even though he was probably already aware. He was probably coming for him too. She lowered one foot off the bed and touched it gently to the floor. There was nobody there. She raised her other foot and lowered it to the ground just as gently. There was nothing. But just as her large toe hit the ground, it brushed against something.

Before Karena could react, he grabbed her and she was being squeezed tightly at her ribcage, and she could feel it just about to crack. For someone who was practically just bones, he was excessively strong. She soon came to realize that there wasn’t just one of them, but two or three or more of them, all squeezing her so ti
ghtly that she couldn’t breathe, all completely invisible.
None of them were grasping her neck, but it made no difference. She was being suffocated all the same.

Weakly, she raised her arms and tried to defend herself. But her body had been deprived of sufficie
nt amounts of oxygen for too long by the time she tried this
, and she found that she was unable to attack with any real force. This was it. This was when he had finally come to get her.

But just when it seemed like she was going to be killed for sure,
when it seemed like if they squeezed her for another second she would suffocate,
they were all suddenly gone.
She didn’t see them leave, of course, nor did she feel them releasing her. They all just suddenly disappeared.

Karena was hunched over, leaning against the wall, in a state of shock. Her ribs felt like they’d been crushed, though she soon discovered that they weren’t. Her breaths were quick and rapid,
despite her efforts to try to calm them down.
With every breath she took, an aching pain shot up her bones. With all this pain, i
t took a moment for her to realize what she was supposed to be doing. Wearily, she stood up straighter and, clutching the wall to help guide her, walked into the other room.

Shawn was engaged in a losing battle. The invisible arms that held him suspended in the air were clearly trying to drag him away, and they would have done it the moment they started if Shawn wasn’t such a fighter. For a
3-year-old
, he was remarkably resistant to being taken, throwing everything about wildly. She supposed it was from years of practice of
being in the body of a toddler over and over again.

Karena didn’t want to go back into the battle. She just wanted to go back to her bed and lay down and pray that the Sandmen would leave her alone, by some miracle. But she never considered for a moment doing what she wanted to do. Shawn needed her help, and so instantaneously she lurched forward and tried making her way to Shawn. As she’d anticipated, a web of invisible skeletal structures blocked her. Karena bashed her way as hard as she could, which wasn’t very hard considering the fact that she’d
just
almost been killed.

But
as she and Shawn were fighting, something became slowly more and more evident. This wasn’t like the time in the orphanage when Karena h
ad actually been able to escape because they’d let her.
This was clearly different, and they were losing. But something else was becoming evident, too. It’s that the Sandmen weren’t interested in her. True, they’d almost killed her at first, but that wasn’t an actual attempt to kill her, it was more a threat, like the time that Sandman had grabbed her neck
in what seemed like so long ago, except
fiercer
. The Sandmen wanted
Shawn, and now that he had
made up his mind there was nothing she could do to stop his will from
being fulfilled
.
He would let her get out of this one, but Shawn wouldn’t get out of this one. Shawn was going to be killed.

It was terrible watching him once Karena realized this. His fight grew less and less until there was almost no resistance at all, just like the way the fight had diminished in him during his
9 lifetimes.
Shawn lay in the air, all of his limbs pulled out far to the sides so that he was being stretched as they began to carry him away. But Karena only saw him there for a moment, because the Sandmen had him quickly whisked away out the cottage, and the door closed behind. In just seconds, Shawn was completely gone.

Karena
was so surprised by this that for a minute there was nothing she could do. But then she ran out the door and raced across the clearing, yelling Shawn’s name.
But he was nowhere to be seen, just like Karena knew would be the case.
He
had taken him and she’d never see him again.