The light pulsed faintly sickly yellow, unnatural leaking like poison from a single cracked window. The cabin itself leaned into the earth, warped with age, as if the forest had tried to swallow it whole and failed. Moss draped across the walls like burial shrouds, obscuring whatever color the wood might’ve once been. Sections of the roof had caved in, revealing slivers of the black sky above. The stillness here was absolute. Even the trees seemed afraid to breathe.


I approached cautiously, my flashlight beam flickering over wet, splintering boards. The air was dense with the scent of mildew and something sharper acrid and coppery. Old blood. The kind that had seeped into the grain.


This wasn’t just abandonment. This place was ruined. Corrupted.


The window was small, spiderwebbed with cracks. I leaned in. Inside, the air shimmered with dust motes, caught in the flicker of a lantern its flame weak and guttering. Shadows pressed in on every side, hunched and waiting. The silence was thicker here. Smothering.


My hand hesitated on the latch. The metal groaned under my touch, the sound slicing through the quiet. The door swung inward with a long, breathless sigh.


The interior was one open room, collapsing in slow motion. A table in the center sat beneath a heavy coat of dust, grey like ash. Chairs leaned at awkward angles. Wallpaper peeled from the walls in long, curling ribbons. Beneath it, someone or something had carved symbols deep into the wood. Not words. Not letters. Circles within jagged lines, spines and spirals that seemed to twitch when the light struck them just so.


I stepped closer. The markings shifted under my gaze, pulsing faintly. Organic. Like scars left too long on living flesh.


Then came the growl.


Low. Deep. From the far corner of the room.


I froze.


The flashlight beams quivered as I swept it toward the sound, but the shadows refused to part. The growl came again. Closer. Hungrier.


I backed away, knocking against the table. Dust rose like smoke.


The lamp sputtered.


Something moved.


A shape. Not quite seen. Not quite real.


Scratching now. Long, slow claws raking across wood. Followed by a new sound a chittering. A rhythmic, wet clicking like bones grinding in a locked jaw. I turned, stumbled. My hand brushed something smooth.


A bone.


Human. Clean and white in a bed of dust.


My knees buckled.


I scrambled for the door, but it was too far. The flashlight flickered. Then, it caught them.


Eyes.


Red and glowing. Inches from my own.


They hovered midair, burning through the dark. And behind them formless shadow, thick and breathing. Something massive stepped from the edge of the room, its shape half-formed. Matted fur. Smeared darkness. The growl deepened into a broken, guttural wail.


It wasn’t just hunting.


It was in pain.


Then the smell hit hot and fetid. Metallic, like breath drawn through rust. I staggered back, light swinging wildly. The symbols on the wall pulsed faster. Reacting.


The creature lunged.


The light went out.


Not blackness. Absence. Colorless. Soundless.


And then a scream.


Not mine.


Something small. Fragile.


Cut off, abruptly, in the belly of the dark.