The crunch of twigs under my boots was the only sound louder than my heart pounding in my ears. The red eyes twin embers smoldering in the dark were burned into my memory. I didn’t look back. I ran.


Blindly.


The fog, once merely eerie, was now suffocating a wet, heavy blanket that dragged at every step, filling my lungs with cold dread.


My foot caught. Pain exploded in my ankle as I stumbled to the ground, a cry escaping my lips. The silence swallowed it whole. I pushed up again, teeth clenched against the agony.


The growls grew louder.


Not just sounds voices, in a way. Deep, intelligent. Full of promise.


I plunged into the woods.


My flashlight beam shook, slicing through the fog in thin, ragged strokes. Trees crowded around me skeletal limbs grasping, roots twisted to trip. Every shadow writhed. Every breeze became pursuit.


The scent of rot, earth, and something chemical clung to the air.


I veered off the path, crashing through underbrush. My lungs burned. My muscles screamed. But still, I ran. Somewhere ahead, there had to be hope. There had to be her. I thought of Emily her smile, her voice and forced my legs to keep moving.


A branch tore my jacket. I barely noticed.


The growls chased closer, the red eyes trailing like bloodied stars in the dark.


Then I saw it.


A sliver of moonlight cutting through the canopy, catching on something thin and wild: a path. Barely wide enough to pass through, nearly swallowed by brambles. But it was there. And it was *mine*.


I threw myself into it.


Thorns clawed at me. Branches lashed my face. The trail was chaos stones, debris, slick moss but it was forward. That was all I needed.


The growls pursued me like thunder.


Finally clearing.


I collapsed into the open space, the sudden absence of trees like a gasp. I breathed. Just for a second.


And then the growls returned.


Closer.


I swung the flashlight around. Its beam shook across the clearing’s edges. The trees pulsed with shadow, alive with menace. And then


It stepped out.


Something tall. Gaunt. Humanoid, but wrong. Joints too long. Movements too stiff. Like a puppet strung on invisible wires. Eyes glowing red, unblinking in the dark.


Then another.


And another.


I was surrounded. A tightening circle of nightmares.


I froze. My legs nearly gave out. But freezing meant death.


I dropped to my knees, hands grasping blindly. My fingers closed around a rock jagged, solid. My heartbeat slammed like a war drum. If this was the end, I’d go down fighting.


Then crack.


A new sound. A sharp branch snapping from somewhere deeper in the woods.


The creatures stopped.


Something moved between the trees fast, human-shaped, impossibly swift. Tall. Slender. And not like them. Not quite.


For a breathless moment, the circle wavered.


And I ran.


I slipped through the gap, hurtling back into the trees, not knowing where I was going. Just away. The chase began again. But this time, I wasn’t sure what I was running from or toward.


Who was that figure?


A savior?


Another hunter?


Or just another nightmare dressed differently?


I didn’t know. But the forest didn’t care. It swallowed me again, one breath at a time.