As he ran he could feel his own hot air coming out of his own mouth as he exhaled. This was not comforting, but on the contrary, chilling. He also felt how they breathed on him again, sometimes on the back of his neck and at other times the heat reached his ear. That only told him that whatever was blowing at him was also running to catch up with him, since sometimes it missed the back of the head directly because of the movement.

-Leave me alone! -the boy yelled with anger and fear as he heard the neck-breather laugh in that bubbling, twangy voice from the shadows, just after breathing down the back the neck and making Kaleb unable to help scratching or covering himself with his hand. He even tried to keep his hand on the back of his neck to cover himself from it. He thought he would feel the breath on his fingers, but now he felt it on the side of his neck, his ear and his cheek. The boy then moved his head to scratch his cheek from the uncomfortable feeling, but he couldn't help but feel the need to escape.

His eyes caught a glimpse of a new portion of the tunnel. This one was illuminated once again. It seemed that this dark area only lasted a few meters, and then the lamps were fully functional again. So he ran even more, although his legs were already starting to get tired from reaching that lit area. It seemed as if the neck breather had also noticed it, because it began to breathe more frequently and each time in places on the head or face. It seemed that it was no longer even aiming at the neck, but clumsily breathing without caring much where the vapor landed.

Finally, the last breath he felt was in his ear and this time he clearly heard an "aah" from the creature exhaling. He lowered his head and brandished the flashlight again to see if he could hit it, but it hit nothing. At last his eyes, looking at the ground, saw his own feet enter the illuminated area.

Already sure that he could see, he turned to look at the other creature, but noticed that it was standing alone in the dark part of the tunnel ahead, a few meters ahead. He stared into that darkness and noticed two of those little reddish dots from the dying lamps. The lamps themselves didn't light up, but these two little dots seemed to flicker. He was stunned and after staring at them, the little dots moved. They broke away from the wall and moved towards the center, more or less to be in front of him. There he noticed that those little dots were floating at what he calculated as about 3 meters from the ground.

The boy glared at the thing and they stared at each other for what seemed like hours. The boy was glaring at it and for a moment he thought that caused the thing to be intimidated, because he saw the little dots turn and disappear, as if they were now pointing to the other side. Then he heard a long moan, like a very small child who doesn't want to eat his vegetables, but with the neck-breather's voice.