FF#1: The Embrace of Darkness. Prompt: "Into the Wild". Summary: While out in the woods at night, Oliver loses his comms unit. His mind automatically goes back into island survival mode.

Oliver was running in the dark. Trees and bushes seemed to lunge at him from all sides, but he dodged them instinctively with an ease that was almost feral. There were no sounds in the forest, only his own breathing, fast but even, and his pulse thundering in his ears. He had lost his comms unit, somewhere back there in the darkness, when he had been so focused on simply surviving that everything had coalesced into a blur of struggle and movement. He had lost his comms unit and so he had lost her voice in his head, and now he was alone in the silence of his mind.

The almost silence. There was one thought, pure and clear, repeating itself over and over like a mantra. I have to get back to her.

It was strange how familiar that was. How close to another time and another forest. To another woman. His mind embraced it easily, falling back into a persona he thought he had abandoned long ago. He slipped between the trees, a fleeting shadow on a black night.

There was someone up ahead, talking quietly into a radio. A moment later Oliver saw him, standing in a small clearing, rifle slung across his back. Careless, he thought in contempt. Oliver was upon him in a moment, flowing seamlessly through movements that surged upwards from some primal part of his mind. Almost instantly, the man was down. Oliver raised his hand for the final blow, but a burst of noise somewhere to the north made his head snap up, eyes narrowing as he peered into the distance. He was running before the sounds had stopped.

Oliver raced through the forest, his single-minded focus an arrow pointing him towards his goal. He had to get to her. He reached the location of the sounds and found two more guards down, unconscious or dead. He did not bother to check, moving past them noiselessly. He could see lights now, lighting up the darkness of the forest. They drew him onwards. He knew where she would be.

Time passed measured by his heartbeats, the forest clearing and thinning as he grew closer to the lights. He halted on the edges of the tree-line, breath burning in his throat. Two more guards, their backs to him, eyes on the mansion before them and the arriving guests. Oliver moved backwards, slipping further into the shadows. The darkness embraced him, shielding him as it had so many times in the past. His fingers skimmed a nearby bush, found a suitable branch, and snapped it. Anticipation surged through him as he saw the guards turn and he went to meet them eagerly. They tried to fight against him but he was unstoppable. He was instinct and he was movement and he was darkness. They could not fight against what he was.

It seemed like he had been doing this forever, here in this jungle, fighting for his life. Perhaps he had never left, perhaps everything else had simply been a dream, a fantasy. He had one guard by the throat, watching his eyes as he fought for breath. The other was already out, face down in the dirt. Oliver knew he should release his grip, but another, more urgent part of him was telling him to squeeze tighter, to hold on until the last light faded from his opponent's eyes.

"Oliver."

Her voice came to him from far away. She was calling softly, but his name on her lips was unmistakeable. He released his grip on the guard's throat, barely noticing as he fell unconscious to the ground.

"Oliver?"

This time he answered her. "I'm here." A pause. "I lost my comms."

"I know, I was worried."

He could hear her moving closer, somewhere on the edge of the trees, and then he could see her, blond hair outlined in the bright light like a halo. He wanted to go to her, to take her in his arms, but her presence had brought a sudden clarity and he knew that he could not. He took a final last breath, inhaling the forest, the trees, the darkness, everything that was his battle to survive. And then he left the guards where they had fallen and moved towards the light.

"Oliver." He could hear the smile in her voice.

He answered it with his own.

"Felicity."