Chapter Text
There was a time, years ago, when Carlos would’ve laughed at the way Lando ran - long legs moving too fast, uneven, awkward, chaotic.
“Run normally, please,” he’d say in that thick Spanish accent, half amused, half fond, and Lando would wheeze out a laugh because yeah, it probably looked ridiculous.
But there was no laughing now.
His sneakers slapped hard against the asphalt, each step a desperate percussion, rough and messy and urgent. The backpack on his shoulder thudded against his spine with every stride - heavy, yes, but not enough to slow him.
Not enough to make him stop.
He risked a glance behind.
He saw it.
The shape jerked toward him in uneven, unnatural movements, like joints were missing pieces, like a body trying to remember how to be a body. It wasn’t running the way humans ran - there was no rhythm, no logic - just motion.
Fast, greedy, relentless motion.
Lando’s foot caught the edge of the curb before he could look forward again.
The ground met him hard.
His palms scraped first, then his hip, then something sharp jarred up his ankle with a scream of pain. The impact punched the air from his lungs in a single “ugh-” sound. Gravel pressed into his skin. For half a second everything was still, the world a blur of concrete and breathlessness and ringing in his ears.
Then he heard it.
A raw, gurgling, almost screaming sound clawed through the distance behind him.
He scrambled upright.
Adrenaline did most of the work.
He tried to push off into a real run again - one strong step, then another - and pain detonated up his leg, sharp enough that a noise tore out of him without warning. He didn’t have time to check it. Didn’t have the luxury of knowing if something was broken or just burning with sprain and terror.
So he ran anyway.
Or tried to.
It was a run held together by panic and momentum and denial - uneven, limping, graceless. The world bounced with every painful step, and each bounce drove another flare of pain up through bone and nerve and muscle.
And still, it wasn’t enough.
Behind him, the thing was faster. Faster in a way that didn’t obey anatomy, exhaustion, sense, or mercy.
He could hear it - every dragging, irregular footstrike. Every wet, ruined breath. Every guttural sound that was almost a scream, almost a cry, almost a voice, but not quite anything human anymore.
It was closer.
The thought hit him cold, followed immediately by heat - burning in his throat, stinging his eyes, trembling on every inhale. Tears came without permission, hot and fast, ripped from him by a fear too big to hold inside the body of someone trying to survive.
He hated that he was crying. Hated that his breath hitched with it, small, panicked, messy little gasps that slowed him further. But the sounds behind him were worse - louder, heavier, closer - and survival was bigger than pride.
He limped faster.
Faster.
Not fast enough.
The street stretched ahead of him, endless and empty. No cars. No people. No Oscar. No open doors. Just straight lines going nowhere and silence that offered no rescue.
He wiped a shaking hand across his face, tasting salt, dust, and fear.
“Move,” he whispered - to his legs, to the universe, to anything listening. “Just move.”
And somehow, impossibly, he kept going.
Not because he thought he’d make it.
Not because he was brave.
But because stopping wasn’t an option.
Not anymore.