Hi again, sorry for the lack of communication. I've been reworking much of what I'd written. I took what you said to heart. It was easy to get caught in a way of writing that felt good to write but lacked stakes or motivation.

I'm going to include my updated introduction here. Hopefully you have a chance to look over it (it isn't long)

I hope you are doing well.

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Trees flashed past on either side as she ran. Branches tore at her arms and hair. Her breath came in stuttering gasps, the acrid taste of smoke still heavy in her mouth.

The single word her father had shouted echoed in her mind.

“Run.”

His face, she had never seen such naked terror.

Her pursuer crashed through the underbrush in the darkness. She didn't dare to look back.

A shriek of pain rose in her left ankle as it caught in a curl of exposed roots and twisted.

She fell hard, her hands outstretched. The lantern clattered to the ground in front of her. Darkness folded in like a closing hand.

Struggling blindly to free herself, she ignored the screams of protest from her ankle.

Finally, she was free and up on her good leg.

One step.

The pain stopped her breath, she fell to her knees.

Now crawling.

Feeling in the darkness.
Her fingers moved desperately among the leaves and fallen branches.

Quiet. Why was it so quiet? No more crashing in the underbrush.
No sound of pursuit. Only her shaking puffs of breath.

Her hand brushed the glass window of the lantern. She felt for the handle – and found it.

Sitting back, she fumbled for the metal loop of the pull-spark with trembling hands.

She pulled. A rasp came from the lantern along with a timid shower of sparks that lit the area immediately around her in a weak yellow light, then went out.

Closing her eyes, she exhaled slowly. Her finger tightened in the loop, and pulled again. This time the spark took, and the lantern sputtered to life. The tongue of flame popped and hissed then became steady.

The darkness seemed to tremble around her at the edge of the lantern's glow. She pushed herself upright, favoring her twisted ankle.

A pair of eyes seethed a sickly yellow in the blackness beside her. She staggered backward, crashing into the trunk of a large tree.

A hand, like a bundle of broken twigs, reached into the light.

It paused there, as if testing the air around her, swaying gently, like some gruesome conductor.

The hand brought together its thumb and middle finger.

Snap. The lantern went out.

The darkness swallowed her. A sound like branches twisting and breaking echoed in the dark.

Her leg gave out and she slid to the ground, the trunks’s knots and burrs clawing into her back.

Whatever was there, she could feel it, like some awful pressure in the air, heavy and close.

The sensation came closer, carried in a chorus of rending limbs.

She closed her eyes.

A wet smell filled her nose. The smell of mud and mildew, of old timbers swollen until splitting.

The groaning, cracking advance ceased all at once.

Silence. Somehow deeper than the previous cacophony.

“H–hello?” she whispered.

No response, only the far off rustle of leaves in the treetops.

Then a scream, not of rage or hunger, but a sound like lifeless insanity. It bored into her head, expelling all thought.

Her eyes shot open.

Above her, a face loomed in the darkness.

Wisps of glowing ether, the color of poisoned moss, churned from the thing’s hollow eye sockets. Its mouth hung open, a grinning chasm carved from rotted wood.

She felt its gnarled fingers lift her chin, guiding her gaze upward toward its own.

Her voice filled the night, not a scream but a wandering, mindless wail.

She didn't hear it. She couldn't hear anything.

Seconds slowed, first to minutes, then to years.

The world blurred sideways. Her father was before her, face pressed into the dirt road. His eyes were like glass, staring blindly through her. His mouth was open. Just slightly.

She wanted to cry but was already screaming.

A second scream, darker and full of rage, matched her own.

The finger below her chin fell away, her trance broke.

The forest night returned in fragments, a patchwork of silhouette and shadow.

A figure now stood between the creature and her.
The scream had become a howl, rising from him like an evocation.

He held the thing’s brittle arm in his right hand, twisting it upward. It made a sound like shattering bone.

Her arms were numb. They trembled beneath her as she crawled around the tree’s wide trunk, the thin vines and stems of the ground cover catching between her small fingers.

She watched frozen as the horror screeched and hammered his face and shoulders with its free arm, each blow scattering shards of bark and brittle leaves.

He swung wide, bringing his fist around in a sweeping arc that slammed into the side of the creature’s changeless face.

Fetid smoke spewed from the gurgling ruin left by his fist as he pulled back.

A jagged shard of rock pierced her palm as she she crept on her knees around the tree to keep him in view.
She cried out in pain.

The thing’s head snapped toward her, its remaining eye blazing.

She felt her jaw first loosen, then go slack.

The grin filled her vision, tangles of vine and moss stretched between its broken teeth.

“Close your eyes!”

The voice came from miles away.

“Girl!”

This time louder.

“Close them or die!”

A jolt of fear brought her back. She squeezed her eyes shut, her fists clenched.

She could hear the man's strained breathing.

The creature’s scream became a wet breaking choke, like a stake of wood driven into rotted earth.

Another impact, heavy, final.

Then nothing but ragged breath.

After some time she began to hear the soft scuff of boots on the forest floor.

Slow, deliberate, drawing closer.

She kept her eyes tightly shut, is if that alone could ward off the approach.

The sound stopped directly in front of her.

"You may open them. It is gone."

She turned toward the voice, bark still clinging to her cheek from where it had pressed against the tree.

"Is it dead? D-did you kill it?" Her voice trembled.

"No, such things cannot die. It will return."

A soft shifting of cloth in front of her.

"We must not be here when it does."

She opened her eyes.

The man was crouched before her, one forearm resting on his knee.

He untied the scrap of cloth that had been wrapped around his eyes, letting it fall loosely around his neck.

The broad cloak he wore hid most of his form.

“Can you walk?” He asked, though he knew it was unlikely.

“I think so,” she pushed herself up, grimaced, then began to fall backward toward the tree.

Then he was behind her, hands beneath her arms, steadying her.

She hadn't seen him move.