Chapter 395: Troubled Girl
The girl’s breath tore through her throat as she sprinted between the trees. Branches whipped her face, scratching her skin raw. Behind her, the sound of snapping wood and heavy footsteps grew louder, each one closer than the last.
Her name was Naira.
She had lived her whole life on this land, where the old stones bore carvings of her people’s stories. Now those same stones were shattered, smeared with blood, and scattered across the dirt. The elders had ordered an evacuation five days ago, forcing them to relocate hastily.
But, even in their new camp, dangers were abundant. They didn’t manage to get far away.
That’s why gathering food, which used to be a simple task any hunter or gatherer could do, was now akin to a death sentence.
Especially because that cruel bastard refused to help them, far too absorbed in living out his tyrannical fantasies.
A deep snarl echoed through the woods, shaking leaves from the branches. Naira’s pulse hammered in her ears. Her legs ached, but she couldn’t stop. Not when she knew what had happened to the others who did.
The creature’s scent reached her before its shadow did; a mix of sulfur and rot.
She risked a glance back.
The creature was massive, its body covered in black plates that looked more bone than armor. Its jaws split unnaturally wide, drooling a tar-like substance that hissed where it hit the ground.
It shouldn’t have been real.
Her father used to speak of creatures like this by the fire, back when the world was a much simpler place. Skin-walkers, he called them. Spirits that fed on fear and hunted those who forgot the old ways. As a child, she’d hidden under her blanket whenever he mentioned them.