The wind shrieked through the skeletal trees of Gévaudan, its wailing cry lost in the abyss of the night. The air was thick with decay, with damp earth, and with the cloying, metallic stench of blood that never truly faded. The village lay silent-doors barred, candles
snuffed-because to acknowledge the ritual was to invite the beast's attention.
She was the chosen one.
Bound in black silk, her wrists ached from the cold bite of the bindings. Her gown, once a vision of purity, trailed behind her in the mud, streaked with the remnants of those who had come before. The elders' lips moved in hushed prayers, though their voices trembled. They knew prayers did not save the sacrificed.
The forest swallowed them whole.
Branches arched overhead like gnarled fingers, twisting together to blot out the moon. Shadows stretched unnaturally, shifting with the whispering wind. Every step deeper into the woods felt like stepping into a grave, the earth beneath her feet soft, like it had already been disturbed.
Then-silence.
The prayers stopped. The torches flickered.
And from the abyss between the trees, they appeared.
Two eyes. Dark blue, glowing with unnatural light, peering from the void. They were too knowing, too intelligent. Not the vacant hunger of an animal, but the gaze of something far worse-something that watched, that waited. That understood fear and reveled in it.
Her breath caught in her throat. The elders took a step back.
The last sound she heard was the snap of twigs beneath unseen claws.
Then, the beast moved.
And the hunt began.