The woods always had this damp, earthy smell to them—like the ground was forever soaked in rain, even if the sky hadn't seen a drop in days. It was comforting, in a way. Familiar. But today? Today it felt different. Off, somehow. And not in the "something's watching us from the trees" way, though that was always possible. No, it was more like the silence after James said a dad joke at the dinner table.
Tommy walked a few paces ahead, his knife strapped to his hip and his eyes scanning the ground for any signs of life. We hadn't spoken much since leaving Section 3, and we didn't need to. Out here, silence was our friend. Well, Tommy's friend, at least. I liked to think of silence as more of a distant cousin I tried to avoid at family gatherings.
We checked the first trap—nothing. The wire was still perfectly set, the bait untouched. The kind of empty that made your stomach clench, not because you were hungry but just because of sheer disappointment.
"Nothing here," I muttered, crouching down to inspect the trap anyway. I didn't need to check it. It was as empty as my optimism on a Monday morning. Still, I went through the motions, fiddling with the wire like it might magically produce a rabbit or boar. Spoiler alert: it didn't.
Tommy gave me a look—one of those looks that was probably meant to say, "Stay focused." He wasn't much for words unless they involved warnings or telling me to shut up.
"Yeah, yeah," I waved him off, standing back up and brushing the dirt from my hands. "We've got other traps. No need to panic yet."
The second trap was just as bad. Same with the third. And the fourth. By the fifth, I was starting to feel like we were the punchline to a joke the woods were playing on us. Only it wasn't funny, and there was no audience laughing in the background—just the endless stretch of trees and the wind making that eerie, whispering sound through the branches.
"You notice something?" Tommy's voice cut through the quiet.
"What? You mean the complete lack of anything even remotely alive? Yeah, I noticed."
Tommy didn't respond, but he stopped at the edge of a small clearing. His eyes narrowed, tracking something on the ground. I followed his gaze and saw the marks—a set of deep grooves in the dirt, like something had been dragging across it. Something heavy. Something with tusks.
"Boar?" I asked, though it was more to myself than anything.
Tommy knelt, running his fingers along the marks. "Maybe. Looks fresh."
"Great," I said, slinging my bow across my back. "Maybe we'll actually find something that doesn't involve us going home empty-handed. Although," I added with a grin, "I wouldn't mind skipping the part where we get gored to death by a rogue boar. Call me picky, but it doesn't sound like the best way to go."
Tommy shot me another one of those looks. "Let's just follow it."
"Yeah, sure. Let's just follow it," I mimicked under my breath. But I followed him anyway. Of course I did.
We trailed the boar marks for a while, Tommy moving ahead with the quiet grace of someone who actually knew what he was doing. Me? Not so much. Not like I was bad at stealth just that Tommy was like a forest ninja, and every minor mistake he'd shoot me a look. I couldn't help it—stealth wasn't my strongest suit. I had other strengths, like sarcasm. Not exactly survival-grade material, but it kept me sane.
As we moved deeper into the woods, the air got heavier. Thicker, like the trees were pressing in on us. And then, faintly at first, I heard it—a wet, tearing sound, like someone was ripping apart a piece of meat. A shiver ran down my spine, and I stopped dead in my tracks.
"Did you hear that?" I whispered, eyes scanning the thick foliage ahead.
Tommy had already stopped, his body tense and ready, like a coiled spring. He didn't answer, but his hand moved to the hilt of his knife. That was answer enough.
We crept forward, slower this time. Even I knew better than to crack a joke right now. The sound was getting louder—more insistent. The smell hit next: raw, bloody, and sour all at once, like a slaughterhouse left to bake in the sun.
I slipped between two trees and crouched low, motioning for Tommy to stay back. He nodded, his grip tightening on his knife as I inched closer, pushing aside a few stray branches to get a better look.
And that's when I saw it.
A boar—well, what was left of a boar—was sprawled on the ground, its body torn open, entrails spilling out like a bad art project. But it wasn't the boar that made my blood run cold. No, that honor went to the thing currently making a meal out of it.
The creature was massive—at least ten meters long, with scales so black they seemed to refract everything around it. And it had not one, but two heads—one at each end of its serpentine body, both locked in a gruesome feast. Each head was nearly as large as the boar itself, with jaws lined with jagged teeth. They were digging into the flesh like they hadn't eaten in weeks. Which, judging by the state of our traps, might've been true.
"Feral rank," I whispered under my breath, my voice barely audible. But even as I said it, one of the heads stopped chewing. It lifted, nostrils flaring, and turned in my direction.
Its eyes—cold, reptilian, and far too intelligent for comfort—locked onto mine.
"Oh crap," I muttered, taking an instinctive step back.
The creature hissed, the sound like air escaping a broken pipe, only a thousand times more menacing. The second head joined in, lifting from the boar and snapping its jaws, sending chunks of meat flying. Both sets of eyes were on me now, and neither looked particularly pleased to see an intruder.
Tommy must've sensed what was happening because he appeared at my side, his face pale but calm. "We need to move. Now."
"Yup. Great idea. Let's do that," I replied, backing away slowly. The snake didn't seem to appreciate our decision to leave. It reared back, both heads rising high above the ground, their forked tongues flicking out, tasting the air. Then, with a terrifying speed that should not belong to something that big, it lunged.
"Run!" Tommy shouted, and that was all I needed to hear.
We bolted, weaving through the trees like our lives depended on it—because, well, they did. The ground was uneven, roots and rocks tripping us up at every turn, but we didn't stop. Behind us, I could hear the snake crashing through the underbrush, both heads hissing in unison. It was gaining on us.
"I really need to get my stamina up," I panted, leaping over a fallen log.
"Shut up and run," Tommy growled, sprinting ahead.
I didn't need to be told twice. The trees blurred as I pushed myself harder, my legs burning, lungs screaming for air. The hissing grew louder, and I dared a glance over my shoulder. Bad idea. The snake was closer than I'd thought, its black scales flashing between the trees as it slithered after us.
"Faster!" I yelled, even though I wasn't sure my legs could move any quicker without falling off.
The wall—the one separating the woods from the slums—was still too far. I could see it in the distance, but it felt like miles away. There was no way we'd make it before the thing caught up. And if it did? I didn't even want to think about what two heads full of razor-sharp teeth could do to us.
"Split up," Tommy shouted suddenly, veering left.
"Are you insane?" I shouted back, but he was already gone, disappearing into the trees.
Fantastic. Leave it to Tommy to make the most logical yet terrifying call under pressure. I darted right, my heart hammering in my chest as I zigzagged through the trees, hoping each snake head would want to after one of us, and they just got entangled. Hey, a boy can dream.
Behind me, the sound of crashing grew fainter. Maybe it worked. Maybe the snake had gone after him. I didn't slow down to find out.
I burst through the tree line, I looked at the wall, searching for the crack in it, but it wasn't there. I had gone to to the wrong part of the wall. The slums were just on the other side—safety, if you could call it that. I was close. So close.
And then I heard it. That familiar hiss, louder this time.
I didn't look back. I didn't need to. Because I already knew what was behind me, and I had a feeling this story was about to get a whole lot more interesting—and by interesting, I mean terrifying. But hey, at least it wasn't a Monday, right?