The villagers had gathered around the dead goat, staring at its lifeless body.
The blood had soaked into the dirt, its dark stain a silent warning.
No one spoke at first.
Because no one wanted to be the first to say it.
That something had come into their village.
That it had killed and left without a sound.
That it could do it again.
Elder Joren's gaze was heavy as he finally broke the silence.
"We must decide what to do."
His words carried weight.
But even he knew—it was already too late.
Some wanted to fortify the village.
They spoke of barricades, locked doors, standing watch.
Fools.
Veyrath listened from the rooftops, his sharp ears catching every frantic whisper, every tremor of fear.
They thought walls would save them.
They thought torches would keep the dark at bay.
They did not yet understand.
There was no wall high enough. No fire bright enough.
He had already entered their homes.
He had already stood among them.
They were already his.
Then came the others.
The ones who wanted to run.
Edran, the young guard, stood among them, his voice firm.
"We cannot fight something we cannot see."
Others nodded.
They had seen the signs.
The missing people.
The whispering wind.
The eyes in the dark that weren't there when you turned to look.
One of the men—**a farmer named Korrin—**spoke up, voice shaking.
"This is no wild beast. This is no bandit. This is something else."
A woman beside him nodded quickly.
"Something unnatural."
"Something cursed."
"Something wrong."
The words spread like fire.
And for the first time, true panic began to set in.
The villagers turned on each other.
One of the guards scoffed. "Fools. You'd run at the first sign of trouble?"
Korrin stepped forward. "Staying will only get us killed."
The guard's hand went to his sword.
Tension thickened.
Veyrath watched from above, his claws resting lightly on the wooden beams.
Ah.
There it was.
The first crack.
The first mistake.
It was always the same.
They fought each other before they ever fought him.
The discussion turned into an argument.
The argument turned into shouting.
By midday, the village had divided itself.
Half wanted to leave. Immediately.
The other half wanted to stay. To fight.
They spoke of hunting it down.
Of luring it out.
Fools.
Veyrath nearly laughed.
They thought they had a choice.
They did not realize that staying or leaving did not matter.
The end was already decided.
By sunset, the village was exhausted.
Fear had drained them.
Their tempers had burned out.
Some went to sleep in locked houses.
Others stood on watch, gripping their spears with white-knuckled hands.
But even those who did not sleep were vulnerable.
Because Veyrath knew something they did not.
Fear does not rest.
The first real mistake came just before midnight.
A group of men—**six in total—**decided they could wait no longer.
They took their horses.
Took their packs.
And under the cover of darkness, they tried to leave.
Cowards.
Veyrath had seen this before.
There was always a group that tried to run.
And they always died first.
But not because he killed them.
No.
They killed themselves.
The six men left the village by torchlight, leading their horses into the trees.
The woods were thick with fog.
The deeper they went, the quieter it became.
They did not speak.
They did not laugh.
They only moved.
And then, after an hour—
They heard it.
A whisper.
No words.
No meaning.
Just a sound in the dark.
One of the men whipped around.
Nothing.
They kept walking.
Faster now.
The mist thickened.
Then—another whisper.
Behind them.
They turned.
Nothing.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Until they were not walking anymore.
They were running.
One of the men, too panicked, tripped over a root.
He hit the ground hard, his torch rolling away.
The others did not stop for him.
They ran.
He scrambled after them, gasping. "Wait! WAIT!"
A branch snapped nearby.
A shape in the mist.
And then—
Silence.
The others kept running.
They never looked back.
They never heard him scream.
Because there was no scream.
Only absence.
By dawn, only four of the six returned.
They stumbled into the village, breathless, pale, eyes wild.
The village was silent.
The four men who had returned from the woods had no words.
The others did not press them.
They did not ask what had happened to the two who had not come back.
Because they already knew.
The truth was in their eyes.
In their shaking hands.
In the way they no longer looked toward the trees.
They knew now.
They knew escape was impossible.
They knew this village was already dead.
They just had not been buried yet.
No one left their homes that morning.
No one worked the fields.
No one fetched water.
They sat in their houses, their cellars, their locked rooms, gripping weapons, staring at the doors, waiting.
Waiting for something to happen.
Waiting for it to come.
Waiting for the end.
Because they knew—
Tonight, it would come for them.
The sun had barely begun to set when the first scream split the air.
A woman's voice.
It came from one of the small houses near the center of the village.
The villagers rushed toward it, but no one opened the door.
The husband was inside.
But he did not move.
He did not unlock it.
He did not let anyone in.
And by the time they forced it open,
By the time they stepped inside,
By the time they saw the body on the floor, throat slit open, eyes frozen in terror,
It was already too late.
Because they had left their own doors open.
Veyrath moved through the village like a ghost.
He did not kill them all at once.
No.
That would have been mercy.
Instead, he let them run.
He let them hear the screams.
He let them stumble over the bodies.
He let them see the blood smeared on the walls.
And he let them realize, one by one, that there was no escape.
A man fled toward the gate, breathless, panicked.
He reached it—his hands grabbed the wooden bars.
He pulled—
And found it barred from the outside.
He turned.
Veyrath was already there.
A single step forward.
The man's knees buckled.
His breath hitched.
He dropped his weapon.
He knew.
He knew he was already dead.
The claw took him in the throat.
Quick. Clean.
His body slumped against the gate.
Blood pooled beneath him.
The next person who tried to run would trip over his corpse.
Elder Joren had gathered the last survivors in the longhouse.
A barricade of tables and chairs blocked the entrance.
Five men. Four women. A child.
The last remnants of the village.
Weapons in hand.
Eyes filled with desperation.
They did not try to run.
Because they knew there was nowhere left to go.
Instead, they waited.
And so, Veyrath waited too.
Until the last candle burned out.
Until their torches flickered and died.
Until the room was plunged into perfect darkness.
And then—
Then, he moved.
The first died before they even heard him coming.
A blade slipped between ribs.
A gurgle of blood.
A body collapsed to the floor.
A pause.
A shaking breath.
Then—
Another strike.
A woman cried out—
A wet sound, then silence.
Another torch lit.
A sword raised.
But the fire only revealed corpses.
The survivors shrank back against the walls.
Weapons shaking.
Breath coming too fast.
And then—
He spoke.
For the first time, Veyrath's voice filled the air.
"You knew this would happen."
The words were soft. Calm.
"You felt it long before I ever arrived."
Elder Joren swallowed hard.
"Why?" he whispered.
Veyrath took a step forward.
"Because I wanted you to."
The elder closed his eyes.
He did not resist.
The claw took his life just as the last torch died.
The child did not run.
The child did not cry.
She just sat in the corner, staring at the bodies, too young to understand what had happened.
Too young to understand why the world had turned against her.
Veyrath stood over her.
For a moment, he hesitated.
Not out of mercy.
Not out of pity.
But because she was not afraid.
She was too young to fear death.
And death was all he had ever known.
So, he let her be.
For now.
The last of the village.
Left alone.
Surrounded by the dead.
With nothing but silence.
The fires burned themselves out.
The night ended.
But the village did not wake.
By morning, it was empty.
No smoke from the chimneys.
No voices in the streets.
No doors creaking open.
Only cold, lifeless silence.
The kind of silence that meant something terrible had happened.
The kind of silence that meant no one was coming back.
And beyond the village, in the trees, in the distance—
Veyrath moved on.