She was dreaming; instinctively, she knew this.

As a child, Lark had always had vivid dreams, and over the years, she had learned to journal and cultivate these dreams into scenarios she had some control over. If Lark was honest, this had very little true value for her. Occasionally, she found that if she was anxious as she had been for first-year final examinations in University, she could dream and process the most probable scenario. Then, proceeding into that domineering hall with a hundred other students, she was able to project that calm peace cultivated from sleep.

Now, Lark saw her grandmother. She was standing on that peak overlooking the river, and the familiarity struck her. It was the picture from the last postcard she had sent. However, this time, her grandmother was not smiling but was waving frantically and yelling something that seemed eerily like “go back,” but no sound came from her lips. All at once, Lark was at the river edge, and the spray from the water was in her mouth and eyes, then she was submerged and sinking no matter how she struggled to the surface.

Lark awoke in a panic and pushed the creature savaging her face away, making a solid hit that sent the little dog tumbling.

Lark immediately regretted the action with the pup's pitiful yelp and jumped up to offer her consolidation. Her face was wet with the dog's licks and her ears roaring with the sound of the silent river.

Lark bent down to scratch the belly being offered to her in absolute submission as liquid brown eyes looked at her with brimming affection. The little dog's back legs began kicking frantically as the sweet spot caused pure bliss and rabbit kicks simultaneously.

With close inspection and the help of daylight, Lark could see that the dog was in fact a Corgi, his short paws and fluffy bum a true testament to the breed.

“Albus? Isn’t that right little man? Now, where is your mommy? We need to have a little chat about you being off-leash and tripping people”.

Lark looked around, causing pain to blossom in her right temple that radiated down her neck and into her teeth, leaving her breathy and tense.

She expected to see crowds of people and what she assumed would be a young girl anxiously calling for her dog. But there was no one.

Lark could not see a single living soul around her.

Sitting in the circle of Stonehenge, she gazed out on the hills and knew that they were wrong. Lark had come on the coach in the dark yet her destination had been as familiar to her as Chelsea who had been sitting beside her or Thomas. This is how she knew unequivocally that she was not in the same Stonehenge that had been fully revealed to her during the Summer Solstice Ceremony and hours of research preceding the event.

She slowly rotated her neck, teeth grinding at the increased tempo of the ache spreading through her sinuses as she heard her heartbeat in her ears and the taste of iron in her mouth. Where was she?

The mountains should not be here, Wiltshire was grassy with rolling hills, lush grass and sheep dotting the hillside was the only elevation until the stretch of 300 square miles of Salisbury plain that Stonehenge resided on. The sprawling car park had been visible from most viewpoints around the monoliths but as she did a slow 360, Lark noticed two things with increasing alarm.

The first was no road, no bus and no car park. Ok, that was three but her rattled brain had just clumped that up into the ‘transport out of here’ category. The second was an enormous, tawny animal staring directly at her from the top of the stone archway that had been behind her. Lark felt sure that the only reason she was not already dead was that the animal had made a kill and had dragged it up to the archway to devour.

The beast resembled a cougar in a way but was horrifyingly massive. Lark felt sure she must be looking at some creature that had stumbled into radiation and mutated like documentaries she had watched on Chornobyl, but nothing she had seen did this thing justice.

The cat-like creature was perhaps 9-10 feet long in length from snout to tail. It had enormous claws and jaws and appeared long and lean with massive teeth that protruded like the tusks of a boar. A red liquid was dribbling down the tusk of the beast as it eyed her, seeming both intelligent and curious.

Lark noticed the body of what appeared to be a foal or small pony but nothing else was distinguishable as the head was gone from a massive bite wound at the shoulders that were dripping with blood from torn flesh. Lark fought the urge to vomit, but she knew she must not take her eyes off this animal for a second.

The creature yawned and flexed its front paws, showing more of the long fangs and finger-length claws that dripped with the blood of the equine creature.

The wind blew, obscuring the view of the beast as Lark's hair lashed her face. Her hair, free from its loose braid that her friend Chelsea had done, tangled around her sweaty brow like dew on the pot of daisies she kept outside her window at home. Chelsea's skill contrasted with Lark's deft fingers that had placed her friend's hair in a beautiful fishtail braid that complimented her pastel blue and lilac shade, kept up by the girls every couple of weeks in one of the hotel's unlucky bathrooms. Hairstyles, what a silly thought at a time like this, but Lark supposed that if she was going to die, she may as well be rocking a beautiful braid, it would be sad to perish with loose locks from a half-assed job

The tusked-lion creature hadn’t moved, it just continued to stare at Lark with blood dribbling from its lips, but that changed with the low sound of a soft growl that came from Lark's left side.

Albus had been silent and still, probably as shocked as she was at the sight of the beast and mangled prey, but now was doing as small dogs do and gearing up for an impossible fight with zero chance of success.

Lark wanted to run, but she was frozen with indecision. Somehow knowing if she turned to run the massive beast could leap on top of her from the stone archway, even if she was fast enough to make it past that, the long legs of the creature would catch her in two or three strides.

A thought crossed her mind, and it began and ended with Albus.

Perhaps she could outdistance him, he was a corgi after all, probably not too fast and definitely not fearsome, maybe that would be enough to distract the beast so she could get away. Another low growl, probably as fearsome as the pup could muster and Lark thought that if she was a dog bone she would definitely be worried but not the cougar-boar beast.

The animal had raised itself onto its haunches and Lark noticed an increased tempo in the swishing of its tail. The tail had spikes on the end like that of a grappling hook. Lark watched in fascination as the spikes slid into a fold of skin on the tail and then emerged again as the mighty cat creature flexed its claws. She could not help herself, even as terror crept up her legs and into her stomach, making her rooted to the spot like a tree before a fire, marvelling at the retractable tail spikes and the ingenuity of the genetics that defined the horror in front of her.

The little dog, Albus continued a low, menacing growl and took two steps forward to protect Lark, placing his fluffy and fragile body between the predator and her. Lark knew at once no matter what was about to happen that she could not run and leave Albus as the sacrificial snack.

A horn blew, it was far off but the momentary distraction of the beast and sudden, deep rumble was enough to snap Lark out of the big cat's molten amber eyes.

With a yell to Albus, she raced away from the stone, running without any sense of direction or plan but to get away and survive.

She was wrong, so, so wrong.

The little dog was like a rabbit on stumpy legs, he bounded by her and turned to encourage her pace, Awoooo! He howled at her, somehow his courage was renewing her own as she pushed down the burning in her chest and throbbing in her head. Her only goal was to run, one foot in front of another, one breath and then another. Her mantra continued for seconds longer than she expected before the startled creature caught them.

The beast had miscalculated as it leaped to jump onto her shoulders and drive her into the earth.

The beast lept but as the backpack and staff kept throwing Lark from side to side, the cat landed to her right a few feet in front of her. It turned, spitting and snarling at her while she veered left and came to a stop, unwilling to put the thing at her back, even she knew that was certain death.

Before she had a second to prepare, the cat swiped at her, its dagger-length claws raking open the side of her backpack and catching her right arm.

Fire and burning and pain.

Lark, a healthy and successful student from a first-world country with little trauma history besides the odd sports injury, could barely process the agony she was experiencing. Lark could feel her primitive brain clawing its way out of some hidden cave and slamming into her muscles and nerves like nitrous to a car engine.

Her damaged arm came up, blocking the next powerful swing of the beasts' claws with her walking stick. The impact sent her spinning away but she managed to drop on a knee instead of falling to the ground. Ground meant death, death by mauling, biting until exsanguination.

She must not fall.

Clash of teeth on a walking stick that somehow would not break, like its wielder the gaping toad screamed in silent defiance as the predator roared and once again caught Lark's backpack with claws, finding new purchase on her left outer thigh.

Nearly hobbled from pain and blood loss, Lark whirled like a ballerina on her good leg and crashed the head of the walking stick against the jaw of the great beast.

A crack split the air, far louder and more forceful than Lark believed possible.

What kind of wood was this? She felt as though she was holding a steel bar as she whirled and twirled, defending and attacking in equal measure. But the blood loss, ever-increasing, was draining her of strength and speed. Her dance was becoming a stagger, her arms barely able to raise the walking stick, her eyes blurring.

Where was Albus? She could not focus properly anymore, and she was so tired.

A horn blew, the sound wave evoking a surge of spirit that her body could not answer.

The creature snarled, pouncing forward as her arms, too slow, could not maintain a block and her body too sluggish to sidestep the advance.

The bite was not as agonizing as she had anticipated.

The teeth sunk around her shoulder, consuming most of her arm with canines into her chest and back. She was in a vice grip, the crushing pressure of death cracking her sternum as Lark spit blood and bile into the beast's eye and mentally kneed the animal in the throat and gouged out its eyes.

Yet, her traitorous limbs were not responding anymore, her body dangling like a mouse in the jaws of a lion as death enveloped her like a river, rushing and choking and cold.