Sheffield, 2020

It was a bright, warm day, the air filled with the sound of tires on pebbles as the bike whistled through the path that divided a tall, overgrown forest. On the bike sat a boy, in his late teens, a mop of brown hair intruding over his freckled face. He pushed it out of the way and smiled as he rode along. It was Michael's favourite place to ride his bike, away from the commotion of the city. It was his quiet place, where he wouldn't be disturbed. Or so he thought.

Suddenly, the boy lunged forward, flying over his handlebars as the bike came to a halt. He sat up sorely, rubbing his head and trying to make sense of the situation. The bike fell to the floor with a loud clang, and as it did, Michael could see a large gash in the back tire.

"Another puncture." He sighed, muttering to himself as he got to his feet and walked over to pick up the now useless frame of his bike.

The sound of rustling through the trees made him stop in his tracks, and his stomach dropped as he got an overwhelming feeling of being watched. He worried, not about potentially being in the forest alone with a stranger, but about the possibility that said stranger would have seen him fall face first. That's embarrassing. In a hurry now, he swiped the handlebars and lifted his bike from the ground. As he began to wheel it alongside him, he felt a dampness on his shoes.

A deep purple liquid had stained his white trainers, and he noticed that a trail of it was coming from the split in the back tire. He was slightly disgusted, and tried to scrape it off on the grass beside him, but it wouldn't budge. He quickly deemed it unimportant and began to head out of the forest more rapidly, his sense that something was wrong growing by the second.

As he moved more quickly, the rustling in the trees became louder, and by this point he knew that something was wrong. He burst into a run, discarding his bike, but he wasn't quite quick enough. He was stopped by a hand firmly gripping his shoulder, pulling him back towards his captor. Michael turned his head slowly, letting out an ear-splitting scream as he laid eyes on what had seized him.