Of course they're being chased; that in itself doesn't even feel different. The dark, the smell of rust and burning, the soft heat under their feet, the sound of hungry things in the dark. It's all familiar.

But not.

We'll be okay, he thinks, holding onto the familiar elements, because before, they've always come out of this. Hurt, bleeding maybe, but alive. But then something shuffles out of an alley to his left with horrifying speed, and he sees it clearly.

And he stops dead.