We had spotted a camp in the distance, the scent of hunger gnawing at our stomachs, and their abandoned carcass was nothing but a promise of a al slipping away with every passing minute. There was no doubt left—we had to attack. Instinct prevailed. Survival, above all.
I had sent Clara, our assassin, ahead as a scout. Her silhouette had lted into the shadows, silent and stealthy, ready to seize the slightest opening when all hell would break loose. She was our secret weapon, invisible, always where no one expected her to be. But I didn't have the luxury of waiting for a chance, so I took the lead.
I scanned the posted guards, the two unlucky ones watching over this makeshift camp, oblivious to the carnage about to unfold. A shiver of focus ran through as I drew my bowstring taut. The arrow whistled through the air, slicing the night.
I saw the young Mage freeze for a mont, his eyes widening. The arrow pierced his eye, locking his face in an expression of surprise. He collapsed without a sound. No scream, no breath. He was dead before he even touched the ground.
My fingers never left the string. One more second, and I nocked another arrow. I saw another enemy, close by. I took aim, calculated his trajectory, and loosed with almost chanical speed. But before the shadow of my arrow could reach its target, sothing unexpected happened.
He moved with an unnatural fluidity. A re shift of his body, a perfect dodge. I blinked, my hands trembling. Where had he gone? The silhouette had vanished into the air, like mist dissipating at dawn. He was no longer there. A fraction of a second, a gap in ti where he had simply disappeared, as if he had never existed.
My heart pounded faster. Doubt seeped in, panic clutched my throat. What kind of creature could accomplish such a feat?
A shiver ran down my spine.
Then, a strangled scream.
— BEHIND!
But it was already too late.
Jas, our healer, choked in a sickening gurgle. A mont ago, he was standing. The next, he was collapsing, his eyes bulging with terror, his throat pierced by two black blades gleaming under the moonlight. Blood gushed in thick streams, spilling over the gloved hands of the nightmarish figure standing behind him.
And that smile...
A grotesque rictus, too wide, too rigid, as if his face had forgotten how to be human. His eyes were abyssal pits of madness, lit only by a glint of pure insanity. He tilted his head to the side, watching the healer's life slip away with morbid fascination, savoring every spasm of his agony.
— He won't be healing anyone anymore, he murmured in a soft, almost caressing voice.
My heart slamd against my chest. I had awakened sothing. A monster. And I knew instinctively, I never should have.
Then, he vanished again.
My heart was pounding wildly. I hadn't seen anything coming. Nothing. He was a shadow, an untouchable specter, a living curse weaving through our ranks. The air was ice-cold, saturated with a cloying dread that tightened around my throat, nearly choking .
Martial artist Camille collapsed, a trail of shredded flesh and shattered bone where her leg had been just a mont ago. She rolled on the ground, her body writhing in agony, her screams piercing the night like a rusted blade sinking into flesh. The blood, blackened by darkness, spilled in thick splashes on the earth, staining it a deep, dark red. Her face, twisted by pain, contorted into a grimace of pure terror.
— A monster! It's a monster! she scread, her voice breaking with sobs and suffering, each word a tornt, like an open wound that could never close.
She clutched her stump, terror in her eyes becoming a reflection of the abyss. The silence of the night was now haunted by her ragged breaths, like a muffled echo, a foreboding of the end.
My voice trembled. I was the archer, the leader of this group, the one ant to lead us to victory. But how could I face this walking nightmare, this elusive specter that erged, struck with inhuman speed, then vanished before we could even react? Every move seed to toy with our hopes, reducing them to dust before they could take form. I felt the weight of failure pressing heavier on my shoulders, fear creeping into my thoughts, poisoning little by little. We were prey caught in an invisible trap, and I had no idea how we could escape alive.
As I was drowning in my thoughts and fears, a scream tore through the air. This ti, it was Rosaline, our warrior, the strongest of us all who collapsed. One arm gone, she lay on the ground, slowly bleeding out. The shards of her greatsword glinted faintly beside her, like a dying star.
I understood now. This monster, beneath its insidious form, was playing with our weaknesses, like a predator testing the resistance of its prey. It had struck Camille's center of balance, shattering her leg to render her helpless. And now, it had targeted Rosaline at her strongest point—her arm. A greatsword, a weapon of power and precision, ant nothing without the arm that wielded it. It had understood, anticipated, and was leaving us defenseless, one strike at a ti.
Each loss pushed us closer to the breaking point, and I wondered how long we could last against this monster, this creature that seed to read into our very souls.
The wind began to swirl around us, whipping the blades of grass into an unsettling frenzy. A hope, a flicker of salvation. Quentin, the mage, was casting a spell, his words nearly drowned out by the storm. The air vibrated with the force of his incantation, a tangible energy so dense it felt like it could drive away the invisible terror devouring us piece by piece. I clung to that spark, thinking—hoping it would finally give us a chance.
But then, just as we thought we could turn the tide, the monster's black cloak rose into the air.
A sharp whistle pierced the silence, a high-pitched note like a dire on. My arrow sliced through the cloak, soaring through the space with lethal precision... but it was just a trick. A mirage.
Quentin's cry twisted into a broken wail, filled with agony. My chest tightened, and I dared not breathe. When I turned my head, my eyes t a sight I wished I had never seen. Quentin was suspended in midair, his feet weakly kicking at nothing before they stilled in frozen terror. The monster held him close, its grip unyielding. A sadistic glint shone in its eyes, a cold, cruel light, as if it relished the mont.
— Stop!
Its voice cracked through the night like a whip sharp, authoritative, terrifying. It was more than an order. It was a sentence.
My breath ca short, my hands trembled on my bow, unable to do anything against this monstrosity. It towered over us completely, reducing us to re puppets under its control. We were its toys, its prey, and it was toying with us effortlessly, with chilling ease.
— What we're going to do is you're going to drop your weapons, one by one. Start with the shield.
He pointed at Franck, the heavy warrior, the one who had always protected us with his brute strength. He looked at , his face marked by the sa despair as mine. He was searching for confirmation, a sign, a reason to believe he could still resist. But there was none. There was nothing left to confirm. If we resisted, the monster would kill Quentin. It was the end. The only way out was submission.
So, in a slow and painful motion, Franck fell to his knees and set his shield down, his eyes fixed on the ground, consud by humiliation and fear.
But we had underestimated the pure madness that drove this creature.
A sickening noise tore through the night, an inhuman gurgle, like the cry of a beast being ripped apart by agony. Warm droplets splattered against my face, slow and hot, bursting with a dull and repulsive sound. I looked up, and horror seized .
Quentin's throat was gone. It wasn't just a simple gash. No, it had been torn out, shredded, with teeth. His teeth... It felt as if the ground beneath collapsed. My insides twisted in a spasm of unbearable nausea.
A wave of revulsion washed over , but I couldn't look away. Not yet.
Then, before I could react, a spray of blood blurred my vision. Quentin's blood, darkened by the night, splattered my face like a curse. The warmth of the liquid burned my skin, and I choked, unable to catch my breath. My scream of shock was swallowed in my throat, drowned in terror. My trembling hands dropped my bow as I frantically rubbed my eyes, desperate to erase the tallic sting that haunted .
A sound of running. A scream. A dull thud.
When my vision finally cleared, I saw Franck lying on the ground, his chest torn open. He wasn't moving anymore. His eyes were empty, lifeless, and the earth beneath him was black with blood. There was no room for hope anymore, no room for resistance.
I wanted to scream, to run, to fight... but my legs wouldn't respond. They were rooted to the ground, paralyzed by terror, a terror that overwheld more and more, relentless and crushing. My mind scread to move, to struggle, but my body answered only with cowardly submission.
The monster had vanished into the shadows. But he wasn't gone. He was still there, lurking in the darkness, and I could almost feel his gaze on , a frozen heat that gnawed at my insides.
He was still there.
And I was next.
Panic consud , an inescapable wave crushing . Rosaline's and Jas's screams echoed in the distance, growing weaker, fading into the night. This lody of suffering reached deep into my soul, and each scream dragged further into the abyss of terror. I lost my mind. I was drowning, my reason vanishing into the whirlwind of my thoughts.
I ran like a hunted animal, my feet pounding the ground, my arms flailing wildly. I felt far from everything, far from anything that could anchor to reality. In my head, there was nothing left—nothing but fear.
I wanted to live.
Live, live, live!
Every ragged breath, every heartbeat pulled further into this madness, this devouring urgency.
Live... just live.
And then, suddenly, I fell. A brutal impact, my legs gave out beneath . I crashed face first into the cold, hard ground.
I rolled onto my back with a strangled cry, arms reaching toward the unseen, my eyes desperately trying to pierce the darkness.
And I saw him.
A scene of pure horror.
He was there. The monster.
The man with the smile.
I stared for a mont, dazed, a part of refusing to accept what my eyes were seeing.
One foot missing.
Blood mixing with the mud beneath .
I felt like an insect caught in a web, unable to move.
He stepped toward , his pace slow but terribly assured, as if savoring every mont.
His voice rose, filled with madness.
— What do we have here?
He glanced at my quiver with a grin that chilled my blood. Then, without hesitation, he took it and counted the remaining arrows.
— 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7... Ahah, 7 arrows! What a coincidence...
His laughter echoed through the night, a joyless laugh, pure cruelty.
I wanted to scream, to cry out, but no sound left my lips.
I wanted to flee, but my legs no longer obeyed, horror pinning to the ground.
He stared at with a terrifying expression, his eyes glowing with a sick fire. Every second felt like an eternity.
I couldn't take it anymore, the suffering, the fear, the helplessness eating alive.
Then, the pain.
The unbearable pain.
He drove the first arrow into my right leg, just above my torn foot, and agony struck like lightning.
My scream shattered the night, but he cut it off.
He drove in the others, slowly, thodically, avoiding my vital organs, letting suffer, letting live in the pain.
I wanted to die.
The suffering was too great, too unbearable.
But then, I finally saw a glimr of hope, as faint as it was.
He had only one left.
One last arrow.
A strange sense of relief swept through , as fleeting as an illusion.
This was the end.
And he was going to finish .
He brought the arrow close to my eye, a cruel smile on his lips.
At that precise mont, everything beca clear, like a flash.
I rembered the first encounter, the first mistake I had made.
If only I hadn't done that...
If only I hadn't made that decision, taken that path.
I should have known it would all end this way.
The arrow neared, too close.
The world faded around , terror and pain devouring from within.
And then, everything stopped.
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