The escape was a blur of scrabbling limbs and panicked breath.  

One moment I faced those terrifying red eyes—then I was tumbling, headlong down a steep embankment, the forest floor clawing at my skin, shredding my clothes. A guttural growl followed, low and deliberate, vibrating through the ground beneath me. I didn’t dare look back. I just ran.


I hit the bottom hard.


The breath rushed from my lungs. My ankle screamed. Pain flooded my body—a searing bolt that stole my voice. The joint looked wrong, twisted at an unnatural angle. Panic clawed at my thoughts, but I forced it down. I couldn’t stop. Not now.


I dragged myself upright, leaning on a nearby tree as the fog rolled in thicker than before—damp, clinging, and suffocating. Every rustle sounded hostile. Every breath was a countdown. I hobbled forward, pain flaring with each step, but I moved, propelled by the one truth I had left: I had to find Emily.


Somewhere beyond the reach of this darkness, she was waiting.


Eventually, through the branches and the blur of exhaustion, I found it: a path. Thin, half-buried beneath fallen leaves and creeping vines, but there. A trail. Hope sparked—faint and flickering.


I followed it.


The silence intensified the deeper I went, as if the forest held its breath. The path snaked through gnarled trees, and then, through the fog, I saw it: a cabin. Barely standing, half-consumed by rot and undergrowth. A faint light flickered inside—soft, colorless, unnatural.


The feeling returned. That wrongness. Like walking into someone else's nightmare.


Still, I moved forward. Closer, the walls came into focus: sagging timbers, splintered beams, black windows like dead eyes staring back. And yet—something in me stirred. Something oddly familiar.


I pushed open the door.


It groaned like something waking from a long sleep. The smell inside was thick: mold, cold ash, damp rot. My flashlight revealed dust hanging in the air like falling ash. In the center of the room—an empty stone hearth, a shattered chair, and a small table covered in grime.


But on the table lay a book.


Its leather cover was cracked with age. Open to a page with a sketch of a girl. My breath caught. It wasn’t just *any* girl. It was Emily. Her face, her hair, even her eyes—rendered in soft, deliberate lines.


Beside the book sat a silver locket, intricately etched, and a dried wildflower—its color impossibly vibrant, as if preserved by something beyond time.


I reached for the locket. Cold. Smooth. Familiar. I traced the design with my finger, then turned back to the book. The girl in the drawing wore an identical pendant.


Goosebumps prickled up my arms.


The cabin felt like a portal. Not just a shelter, but a message.


A snap echoed behind me.


I spun, flashlight cutting through the gloom—but there was nothing. No movement. No creature. Just that silence again, the kind that feels sculpted around you. The kind that listens.


I wasn't alone.


And whatever was outside—whatever had followed me—was patient.


I tucked the locket into my pocket, clutching the book. These were pieces of something larger, something monstrous. A puzzle I hadn’t asked to solve. But I was in it now, drawn deeper with every breath.


And in that dense, watching silence, something stirred.