12: Run

Aisha's eyes opened on an apparently endless grassland. Her legs were running even before her brain could give them impulse. A stride after the other, faster and faster. How long since she'd run like that? There was something liberating in that movement.
"Run away"
A thrill up her spine. There was something behind her back. A shine of sweat slipped under her t-shirt, in the scorching heat of that place.
What place was it?
"You're in danger"
A part of her would have wanted to stop and catch a breath but that voice, in her head, pushed her forward. And it wasn't only that voice, there was a noise, a rhythmic sound... she turned around.
And her blood froze cold in her veins.
"Run!"
Where on earth was she? Behind her back, between trees who's top was all she could see, run a creature she had never seen before. It had two very long, disturbingly thin legs and two arms just as long, which ended with two tapered blades and a body that resembled a bug's shell. Its triangular head looked like an arrowhead on which two opened cracks hosted the eyes.
"Run"
The grassland, littered with dried-up shrubs, seemed deserted. In the distance, a ridge of trees was in sight, just about visible on the horizon, too far to determine if they were high enough to offer a shelter from that creature.
She was out of practice. Her ankles started to hurt, her breath burned in her lungs. She wasn't used to run anymore: when she transformed there wasn't any need to walk.
She could transform.
She stopped for just a moment, raising her arms and concentrating on the only words that could save her life.
- Winx Butterflix!
Nothing happened.
She reopened her eyes in a rush, in her ears only the rhythmic noise of that creature getting closer.
Magic wasn't working?
"Run!"
That voice in her head again. She ran forward again, confused, with thousands of thoughts chasing each other in her mind. No magic. An unknown monster. A mysterious voice.
Where were the others?
Her right foot landed on a rock and she nearly lost her balance, her ankle bent in an unnatural angle and saved only by the boot that wrapped around her calf. The ground's dust was stuck on its wet surface, slowly covering it with mud.
Water.
The tide, the cave, Flora hanging on her arm, Bloom's voice calling Tecna, the inscriptions on the walls... everything came back in her mind in a confused whirlwind, to the point of making her dizzy.
She swerved and almost lost her balance, regaining it at the very last moment.
"Be careful"
She heard the monster behind her making a noise in-between a roar and a rattle of claws on a rock, like it satisfied him to see her in trouble. But a part of her brain, the one controlling the run, isolated from the rest of it and worked on her own, letting her thoughts free to keep flowing.
They were in Roccaluce, looking for the artifact that could save Faragonda, looking for a way to defeat Taleia. Those incisions and the nymph's notes... what was her name?
Hesperia.
A light bloomed in her mind, a severe face, with straight brown hair.
"You've finally remembered my name. You are worthy to reach the place where my relic is located."
The line of trees, on the horizon, seemed to slowly get closer. Even the shrubs, scattered all over grassland, were changing in shape. Aisha always had an extraordinary tenacity, but that long run was starting to be too much. The monster behind her had gained ground and from that small distance its blades looked way more threatening.
"You must not fear it, look how fast you are... You'll reach my trees in no time."
And then she heard a scream, a few steps behind her. Familiar, super high-pitched, desperate.
She quickly turned around, this time losing her balance for good and falling on her knees. Halfway between her and the monster, flat on her back and with her hair covered in blood, lay a girl.
It was Musa.