Sure you were. Your party didn't seem particularly aggressive after smelling Florian's new aroma... why would these wild creatures?

Your nerves weren't fully calmed. You kept giving your pocket watch glances. There was no way you were going to make it on time to the Stater meeting anymore... but, as the wild neofauna began to close in on you, that initial panic began to dwindle.

The crowd was sizeable, for sure, but it... b-but... it...

A cold shiver ran down your spine. The floating silhouette caught your attention and didn't let your eyes go anywhere else. Both of your focused on its one... its one, dark-red eye, contained within a horrifyingly human skull. The skull itself was shrouded in shadow, as if the night itself had created this monstrosity specifically to unnerve you.

While your eyes were fixated on the abominable creature, you saw Florian's mist begin to fade. You felt him clambering up your foot, squeaking confusion, while you didn't dare look away from the... you struggled to process just whose skull that could have been... the floating skull creature.

Your hairs began to stand on end as the creature drew closer, tilting its skull as it seemed to notice various parts of your own. Before you knew it, you could feel the cold stench of death grazing your cheeks. The frigid, sterile air of a mortuary was practically whispering into your ear as the strange creature seemed to inspect every part of your face.

The skull flew so close to your eyelids that you could see horrid cracks in its facade. Bits and pieces of bone, cracked, flaking, indented and empty. As nighttime began to descend on the hills you stood upon, the creature only seemed to grow ever more endless and ever more terrifying.

"Behh?" It took Mary, sat by your side on her special cushion, to snap you out of the terrified stare you'd been holding for several minutes.

You'd only noticed how long it had been when you finally blinked-- your eyeballs were nearly as dry as the skull now floating mere inches from your nose, forcing your skin to seek refuge from your vascular system as you heard the creature whisper nothingness and meaningless babble into the wind. Its voice sounded like that of the reaper's itself, deep and aching and groaning with every word, never producing any real sounds beyond those typically attributed to winter winds or old, dying trees.

As the Khrysómallon you were now moving to protect nudged her wooled head against your knee, the creature began to make a sound that... almost sounded like laughter.

It was a hollow, crumbling sound. If you had to compare it to anything, it would be akin to an entire skeletal system being forced into parts of itself by harsh winds. For all the terrifying aspects of this creature... its laughter, of all things, could be argued to be the most mundane.