>>60528396 (OP)The fog was thick—unnaturally so. It clung to the grass like fingers, muffling sound and light as though the night itself were trying to swallow the world. The hiker’s breath steamed in the air, the rhythmic crunch of boots on gravel the only sign of life.
Then everything stopped.
No insects. No breeze. Even the stars seemed to retreat behind veils of mist. He turned, sensing it—something. Someone. No, something was watching him.
A shape emerged on the ridge. Slender. Wrong. Pale and skeletal, it moved like a marionette cut from its strings. It dropped to all fours, silently descending the slope like liquid bone, its limbs too long, its gait too fluid.
The hiker screamed—but only once.
The scream was met, echoed, overwritten by a sound so sharp and raw it cut through marrow. Not human. Not possible. It echoed through the hills, waking no one but silencing everything.
When it was over, silence returned. But the fog shifted, revealing a flash of torn flannel, a boot still twitching, and in the tall grass, the white figure—kneeling, feeding—its face turned down, buried in something red and ruinous.
Then it looked up.
Two lidless eyes, black as oil slicks. And a grin that spread far too wide—like it enjoyed being seen.