Deep within the cursed heart of the Gévaudan forest, where the air is thick with rot and the trees whisper warnings in the wind, something stirs. Something ancient. Something insatiable.
They call it La Bête.
A creature spoken of in hushed voices, a horror passed through generations of trembling lips. It is a legend, a nightmare made flesh, a thing that should not exist—yet does. Some claim it is a wolf, but no wolf grows to such monstrous proportions. Some say it was once a man, twisted by some eldritch power, its soul long since devoured by the darkness it serves. Others whisper that it is not of this world at all—a demon wearing the skin of a beast.
But all agree on one thing: those who see it do not live to speak of it.
By the time the first scream pierces the night, it is already too late. The trees close in, the ground swallows footprints, and the wind carries only the sound of tearing flesh. The villagers find nothing in the morning—only blood-streaked earth, bones gnawed clean, and claw marks gouged into the trees as if the forest itself had suffered.
Some swear it walks like a man, towering seven feet tall, its burning blue eyes cutting through the dark like twin embers from the depths of hell. They say its fur is black, streaked with a silver stripe down its spine, and its body is as long as a leopard's, but as wide as a horse. Its snout is too long, its limbs unnatural, its movements too swift for something of its size.
Worse still, there are whispers that it does not always eat its prey. Sometimes, it kills for the sake of killing.
Bullets do not stop it. Blades pass through it as if it were mist. Even fire fails to burn it. The villagers believe it cannot die, that it has risen from the dead time and time again, each time hungrier, each time more furious.
And in the depths of the forest, where the mist never clears and the howls never cease, La Bête waits.
Patient. Eternal. Hungry.