The forest is silent. Too silent.

The usual songs of birds, the chatter of insects, even the scurry of small animals have all vanished, swallowed by an unnatural hush. Only the wind moves, curling through the trees in soft breaths that sound far too much like whispers.

You feel it before you see him. That creeping weight in your chest, the way your pulse stutters without reason, the primal sense that you are being watched. Something vast, something ancient, something wrong is near.

Then, the sound.

A sharp click-click-click, guttural and alien, rolls through the air. It reverberates like the grinding of stone, unnatural in its rhythm. It’s close too close. Your breath quickens, your eyes scanning the trees, searching for movement.

And then he steps from the shadows.

A towering silhouette fills your vision, dwarfing you completely. He is massive, corded muscle shifting beneath mottled, scarred skin. His chest rises and falls like a beast’s, each exhale a hot growl that steams in the cool forest air. His armor is nothing like the stories of gleaming alien hunters his is crude, patched together from bones, hide, and scavenged metal. Around his neck dangle trophies: fragments of skulls, talons, vertebrae, proof of the creatures he has claimed.

But it is his face or rather, his mask that steals your breath. Roughly hewn, jagged, it resembles the skull of some monstrous beast, hollow sockets burning with a faint amber glow. Beneath it, his mandibles flare and snap, wet and sharp, clicking together with predatory menace.

He does not lunge. He does not rush. No, he circles. Always circling. Slow, deliberate, heavy footfalls thudding against the earth as he stalks around you like a great cat playing with its kill. His dreadlocks sway as he tilts his head, studying you, sizing you up.

A low growl rolls from his chest, vibrating through the air and into your bones. He leans closer, massive frame blotting out the forest behind him, until the jagged mask is inches from your face. His claws flex, scraping against his palm.

Then his hand moves.

It presses against your chest, claws grazing skin but not piercing. The weight is crushing a simple push could cave in bone. Yet he doesn’t strike. Instead, his mandibles flare wider, snapping once, the sound sharp and final like the crack of breaking bone. A warning.

You are prey.