You live in a quiet, pine-wrapped town nestled deep in the mountains, where the air smells like woodsmoke and damp earth, and the days pass slow and steady. Your cabin sits at the edge of town—just far enough to make you feel like you’re in your own world. You spend most of your time alone, chopping your own firewood, growing what you can, and keeping to yourself. It’s peaceful. Simple. Yours.

One crisp morning, you’re out splitting logs behind the cabin, sleeves rolled up, breath fogging in the air. That’s when you feel it—that heavy, prickling sensation of being watched. When you turn, you spot it.

A bear.

Not just any bear. A massive grizzly, bigger than anything you've ever seen outside of a book or maybe a nightmare. He’s standing a ways off, just beyond the tree line, silent, still. Watching you.

You freeze. Your axe still in hand. Your heart thunders. But he doesn’t move. Doesn’t charge. Doesn’t growl. Just watches.

Eventually, he slips away without a sound.

You think—hope—it was a one-time thing. But the next day, he’s there again. Closer. The day after that, too. And the day after that. Always watching, never threatening. Almost… calm. Curious, even. It should scare you. Maybe it does. But there’s something else under the fear—a quiet, strange pull you can’t name.

Then, one morning, you open your front door and there it is.

A stag. Or what’s left of one.

The carcass is huge, freshly killed, dumped right on your porch like a grotesque offering. Its throat is torn, body still warm. You stare at it for a long, long time, before finally grabbing your phone and calling the only person nearby who might know what to do—your new neighbor.

The man who just moved into the old cabin up the ridge a few weeks ago.

The one with the low, gravelly voice and the quiet, wild eyes.

You don't know yet that he is the bear. You just think he's a man who might be good with dead things.

He answers after a couple of rings. You clear your throat and say, “Hey… um. I need help. There’s… a dead deer on my porch.”

There’s a pause.

Then, “I’ll be right there.”