They stumble who run fast.

And sometimes they stumble into a pit.

Her ragged clothing and dirtied hair flew out from behind her head as she ran
against the fierce wind. In the pale moonlight, in these barren paths outside the distant comforts of the villages, she found the stabbing, icy shards of the wind more comforting than where she had escape from mere moments ago.
At least it was hard to feel the tears when you were numb with the cold.
Without realizing it, she had come so far that the trees on either side of the path looked like withered, skeletal beings now. Devoid of leaves, and with long branches that seemed to reach out, like long gangly fingers, scratching with sharp nails, trying to grasp her as she ran.
She was afraid to go forward now, wandering the dark unknown, but was much too pained to go back either. It didn’t take long to finish weighing the options – she did not have any desire to return. Thus, the spirits of the night took notice. The mischievous ones had arisen, hearing the call of a poor soul in suffering. Though to humans their acts may seem nothing but cruel pranks, one had to wonder for a moment if they did not have a deeper meaning, a hidden intention to their actions than one imagined. The earth parted on the side of the trodden road, and a tree root unwillingly rose from the ground,groaning, loudly creaking as it heaved unnaturally from the soil. Thick and strong, yet still small and hidden enough to hold itself against the girl’s feet. She fell, and the wind suddenly became stronger, as if urged on by a hidden will and goal. It had a ferocity unlike any natural breeze she had ever felt. It blasted her side like a ram, knocking the wind out of her and pushing her aside into the cold earth among the trees…and into a hole. A pit, with a cold smell of freshly dug soil. Only then did it occur to her where she was now.
The path was known to the people around here. It was known well, among the superstitious and logicians alike for it’s eerie feel…the sensation of sadness that exhumed itself from the very trees themselves. A heavy, burdening despair and grief that all who passed by during the day could feel. At night, people could hear cries. And sometimes people were known to simply vanish – just disappear without a trace. She realized she was hearing the truth behind these tales. Lamentations, cries, and a beckoning for her, “Come to us.” It said, a drifting voice from deep beneath the earth, and before she could get out of the hole, the earth began to shift, and was suddenly swept onto her, back into the pit she was no trapped in.
Buried alive, she thought, and began to panic, yet could do nothing but taste the earth and feel the cold grit around her, see the dark, and the stabbing pain in her eyes. She listened reluctantly, fearfully to the distant, sad whispers of the earth.
She became convinced she would die here, at the hands of some malevolent
being, a spirit that would consume her, and whatever her troubles were that had driven her to this place were suddenly meaningless now. Her lungs tried to breathe, but could not. However…there was no pain. Not anymore. It was an odd realization, and a surprising one. Perhaps her senses were already fading now. She no longer felt the need or the strength to move…
Then, her body began to tremble, and although she could not fully understand all the sensations, she became certain her body was shifting now. Moving, somehow, against her will. Then, she felt the oddest things – her feet seemed to split, and grow longer, and yet there was still no pain – only a vague sense of being nourished, physically satisfied. The same occurred to her arms, but these began to shift upwards, along with the rest of her body, her feet remained firmly planter in the ground. Despite all this movement, she was aware it was all involuntary and there was nothing she could control – not anymore. It was far too late to control anything. And now, she heard the voices again, clearer…
“Weep with us. No matter what, we remain here. We will not abandon you. We
cannot.”
She could not understand much until she felt her body suddenly grow stiff and
hard…and suddenly, her entire torso shot out of the ground. A wooden husk now.

Just another skeletal tree along this miserable path.