I knelt down quickly and grabbed my hatchet, then screamed with all of my lungs before charging at the beast. I don’t know what I looked like, I’d hope a hipster imitation of a ferocious norseman, axe brandished above my head, mouth open and teeth bared. All I know is that I felt sick to my stomach and could hear nothing but my pulse throbbing against my eardrums.

The monster reared up again, and before I even got close enough to swing my hatchet, it flung out a foreleg towards me. The fuzzy leg hit me like a steel beam, picking me up off the ground and sending me flying. I skidded across the grass and bounced into the woodchips piled at the base of the slide. Somehow, I had managed to hold onto my hatchet. I heard someone land beside me with a dull thud.

Marie.

I dropped the hatchet again and scrambled to my feet and knelt beside her. Her arms were splayed out to her sides. Her legs were bent awkwardly beneath her body. Her eyes were closed, a gash had opened across her forehead.

“Fools,” the monster rumbled. “But you could learn something valuable from this experience.”

“Marie,” I clutched her face with my shaking hands, patted—tenderly as the adrenaline would allow—her bloodied cheeks. Her eyes opened.

“Probably shouldn’t have done that,” she said, smiling as blood pooled around her head. Her head rolled limply in my hands, and her eyes fluttered closed.

“No!” I said hoarsely, wiping blood from her face. “No.”

I wiped the tears off of my cheeks, my hands leaving behind streaks of sticky red residue. I felt, as if out of my control, my hand grip tightly around the hatchet. I rose and faced the monster.

“There,” the monster rumbled. “Are no more choices left.”

I ran towards it, slowed at a point a few feet away and heaved my hatchet towards its glowing eyes. The monster ducked, and I watched, helpless, as the hatchet flew harmlessly by, lost in the darkness of the night. The monster scuttled towards me and raised one of its legs. Before I could react, the leg thrust downward. I felt a spasm of pain erupt in the center of my chest.

I looked down and saw that it had gone right through me. The pain faded with my vision, and I hung there on the leg that evil thing. My limbs went limp. My head fell back. Above me, just before my eyes went shut, I could see the moon, glowing bright against the blackness. What a year this had been.

I felt myself drifting away, away from this darkness and towards a familiar place. The sounds of friendly bickering floated to my ears.