The blackness wasn’t absolute. It was like sinking into tar thick, smothering, without even a hint of light. My senses reeled. Then, slowly, awareness returned. Pressure lifted from my chest. I sucked in a ragged breath, the air cold and damp, laced with mildew and rot. My head throbbed, pain pulsing behind my eyes. Every muscle screamed.


I tried to rise. My limbs felt like they belonged to someone else slow, unresponsive. Panic scratched at the edges of my mind. I couldn’t remember what had happened. The shadow. The growl. And then... nothing.


With agonizing effort, I rolled to my hands and knees. The world swam. The dirt clung to me like wet cloth, and every breath tasted of decay. My hands were raw, streaked with blood and grit. My ankle throbbed, sharp pain lancing up my leg.


I looked up.


Through gaps in the skeletal roof, the sky loomed, starless and black. The sickly yellow glow from the window was gone. The silence pressed in thicker here, if that was even possible. A silence that absorbed sound, that swelled with breathless tension.


I forced myself to stand, bracing against a rotting log. My legs threatened to buckle. A few feet away, my flashlight cast a weak beam onto the forest floor like a wounded eye. I crawled toward it, fingers clawing through damp earth. When I flicked it on, the light cut a jagged hole through the dark.


Then I saw them.


Scraped into the ground, just inches from where I'd lain: claw marks. Deep, jagged grooves gouged into the dirt, as if something had tried to drag me or had nearly succeeded. The earth was torn in raw furrows. My blood chilled.


I spun around. The cabin loomed behind me, sagging, a grave marker in the clearing. The forest beyond it crouched like something waiting to pounce. Trees loomed, twisted and bare, their limbs clawing skyward. The quite crackled. I could feel something watching. Listening.


Every rustling leaf felt personal. Every creak in the trees sounded like breath held too long. I staggered forward, flashlight trembling in my grip.


I needed to move. Needed to find Emily. But the woods felt different now changed. It was like they had shifted around me while I was unconscious. The trail I’d followed was gone. There was no direction, just fog and dark and the screaming echo of my own heartbeat.


And then, through the trees light.


Two pinpricks. Red. Watching.


At first, I thought they were fireflies. But no, they didn’t blink. They didn’t move. And they were growing brighter.


They were eyes.


They locked onto mine. Glowing. Crimson. Patient.


I froze.


The air dropped several degrees. My skin prickled. Those eyes weren’t just watching they were studying. Calculating. Predatory.


I couldn’t look away.


My breath caught. My muscles refused to obey. I was frozen, pinned under a gaze that felt old as the dirt beneath me. Slowly, the eyes shifted tracking me. I could feel their heat, like an ember placed inches from my chest. My bones felt brittle.


I shut my eyes. Willed myself to vanish. To melt into the fog.


But they were still there.


Burning behind my eyelids.


I opened them. And then I ran.


Branches whipped at my face. Brambles tore at my clothes. My ankle screamed with every step, but fear silenced the pain. The eyes followed, ever-present behind me. I didn’t dare look back.


The woods distorted. Trees leaned inward. The path vanished. I stumbled, fell, got back up.


Then a twig snapped. Behind me.


I whirled. Flashlight swinging


Nothing.


Just the mist. And the red glow in the distance, still watching. Still hungry.


A thought stabbed through the fear:


*What if there’s more than one?


I didn’t wait to find out.


My body moved on instinct. No direction, no plan only escape. The forest folded in around me, tight and endless. The silence broke only for my breath and the sound of snapping undergrowth.


Somewhere behind me, the eyes moved.


And I knew


This wasn’t about Emily anymore.


This was about survival.