Caleb pressed his back against the door, his leg throbbing with unbearable pain. The wound burned, and blood still trickled from where the arrow had pierced through his flesh. His breath came in short, sharp gasps as he tried to steady himself, to think of his next move. But then… a different smell hit him.
Smoke.
Not the calm, familiar scent of the fire in his hearth. No, this was something wild—thick, acrid smoke that swirled through the cracks of his shelter, filling the air with the unmistakable odor of destruction. His heart pounded faster.
They were burning his camp.
Panic clawed at Caleb's chest as he struggled to process what was happening. He peered through a small crack in the door, his eyes widening in horror. Outside, flames danced in the night, spreading rapidly, consuming everything he had built. His shelter, his work, his meager protection—it was all being swallowed by the fire.
"No..." Caleb whispered, panic rising as he watched the fire crawl closer, devouring everything in its path. "Why? Why are they doing this? What did I do?" His voice cracked with desperation. "I respected the land... I followed everything the Shawnee taught me."
But the flames didn't care. They raged on, growing hotter, hungrier by the second.
Pain shot through his leg again, but a new emotion began to burn inside him—anger. An anger so fierce that it drowned out the fear. With a surge of adrenaline, Caleb gritted his teeth and grabbed the arrow still lodged in his leg. His hand trembled, but with a growl of rage, he snapped the shaft and yanked it free.
"I am tired of this!" he snarled through clenched teeth, his vision blurring with pain. "Everything is hard, everything is a struggle… If they want to play, then let's play."
His heart raced, his mind fogged with a dangerous mixture of fury and adrenaline. For a moment, he felt invincible, as though he could take on whatever nightmare creatures were out there, and he could win. Fueled by a false sense of power, he grabbed his knife, kicking open the door of the shelter and stumbling into the chaos.
The moment his feet hit the dirt, the cold night air bit at his skin, and he rushed out with a roar. But his victory was short-lived.
Shoow. Shoow.
Two arrows struck him almost instantly—one in his lower abdomen, the other in the arm holding his knife. Pain shot through him like lightning, ripping the anger out of him and slamming him back into reality. The knife dropped from his limp hand, and he fell to his knees, choking on a scream. He wasn't invincible. He was fragile, weak in this unforgiving era, and now, death felt close.
Caleb's vision blurred, but as he looked up, he saw them.
Six figures emerged from the brush, each one more terrifying than the last. They wore bones, twisted tightly to their bodies, some painted with dark swirling patterns. Each skull they wore told a different story—wolves, bears, and deer—except for the one at the center.
The leader wore a human skull.
Caleb's heart raced in terror, his body screaming in agony, but his mind fixated on the grotesque sight of that hollow-eyed, fleshless face. Who were they? What were they? The fire roared behind him, the smoke thickening, but he knew he had to move. If he stayed, he was dead.
"I... I have to go."
His mind screamed at him to run, but his body fought back, sluggish from blood loss and pain. With a deep, rattling breath, he forced himself up, staggering away from the burning camp. The smoke filled his lungs, choking him, and he coughed violently as he stumbled through the night, desperate to escape.
He could hear the crackle of the flames, the creak of wood collapsing into embers, and behind it all—the silence of the figures.
Tears blurred his vision, the suffocating smoke making it hard to see as he ran in the opposite direction of the figures, every step a painful battle against the fire and the arrows lodged in his body. His chest burned from exertion, his limbs felt heavy, but he pushed on, fueled by nothing but the primal will to survive.
He thought he had gotten away. He'd run far, at least a hundred meters into the dark woods. But then, as he slowed to catch his breath, they appeared again.
The figures—standing ahead of him, untouched by the fire, as if the very night itself had birthed them.
"How…?" Caleb gasped, his mind reeling. He had run—he was sure of it. But there they stood, as if mocking him.
With a wince of pain and a sharp inhale, Caleb heaved his heavy body up, forcing his legs to move despite the agony searing through him. His mind raced, trying to make sense of the overwhelming terror. Tears blurred his vision, the sting mixing with the blood and smoke in the air. His chest heaved as he stumbled forward, trying to escape.
The night was suffocating, a mixture of darkness and confusion clouding his every thought. He couldn't see clearly, the pain in his body too intense. For someone like him—thrust from the comfort of a modern world into this brutal, unforgiving wilderness—it was torture beyond anything he could have imagined.
He ran, gasping, each step weaker than the last. His lungs burned, his strength rapidly fading. The agony of the arrow wounds throbbed with every movement, the deep ache making him feel like his body was on the verge of breaking apart. He slowed, his body beginning to betray him.
Then, through the ringing in his ears and the pounding of his heart, he heard it—running water.
Caleb stopped, his feet sinking into the soft, wet earth. The Ohio River stretched out before him, its dark waters rushing and twisting in the moonlight. The sight filled him with a cold dread. There was nowhere left to go. He was trapped.
A gust of wind howled through the trees, and Caleb whipped around. His blood ran cold.
No more than twelve feet away, the six figures stood, silent as death itself. Their eerie presence made the hair on the back of Caleb's neck rise. They were closer now, their dark, skull-covered faces glaring down at him as if they could see right through him.
This time, they carried long, dark blades that gleamed under the moon's pale light. The weapons, sharp and jagged, looked like they were carved from some unnatural stone or obsidian—shiny, deadly, and ancient. The way they moved was slow, deliberate, each silent step a clear signal of their dominance. They knew Caleb had nowhere to run.
Caleb's heart pounded in his chest. His breath came in short, painful gasps. Every nerve in his body screamed for escape, but his limbs felt heavy, almost paralyzed by fear.
I have nowhere to go. Nothing I can do. I can't even fight back. Someone, please help!
Desperation clawed at him. In one last, frantic act of defiance, Caleb screamed into the night, "STAY BACK!" His voice cracked, raw from terror and rage. But the words were hollow, powerless. The figures didn't stop. They kept moving forward, like shadows in the moonlight, their bone masks reflecting nothing but death.
Caleb stumbled backward, his legs shaking uncontrollably as his body gave out. His feet slipped on the riverbank, and he collapsed, tumbling into the icy water. The river's cold grip swallowed him, shocking his body and momentarily clearing the fog of pain. He thrashed against the current, but his limbs were useless, heavy and numb from blood loss and exhaustion.
The water pulled him under, spinning him in the rapids. Blood seeped from his wounds, swirling in dark crimson streams as it mixed with the water. His consciousness began to fade, the cold numbing him from the inside out.
The last thing he saw before darkness took him was the six silent figures standing at the river's edge, their skull masks glowing faintly in the moonlight, their long blades held at their sides, still watching him—unmoving, patient—as the river carried him far, far away from their reach.