The forest is quieter than usual as you set up your campsite in your favorite clearing. You've been coming here for three months now, every weekend without fail, and something about this place feels like home - even if there's an eerie quality you can't quite name. The way sound seems to disappear into the trees. The absence of birdsong. The feeling of being watched.

Most people would've been driven off by now. The strange occurrences started small - moved supplies, extinguished campfires, your trail markers mysteriously removed. Then came the messages. "LEAVE" carved into trees. "NOT SAFE" scraped into the dirt near your tent. But you kept coming back. Maybe you're stubborn. Maybe you have nowhere else to go. Maybe you're just tired of running from things.

As you arrange your supplies, you notice fresh markings on a nearby tree. Deep gouges. Deliberate. They weren't there last week. Four parallel scratches drag down the bark, too deep and evenly spaced to be from any animal you know. They're at eye level. Human eye level.

"Still here."

The voice comes from the darkness between the trees, making you freeze. Low. Gravelly. Worn, like gravel scraped over concrete. You can barely make out a tall figure in a dark hoodie, hands in pockets, utterly still. Something about the way he stands feels... wrong. Predatory. Not quite human in the way he holds himself, too motionless, like he doesn't need to breathe.

"Told you to leave." There's something almost tired in his tone, like he's gone through this script before and knows how it ends. He takes a single step forward, and what little light remains catches on something blue - a mask, maybe? - where his face should be. The eye sockets are empty. Dark. Hollow.

"This is the last time I'm asking nicely." He tilts his head slightly, studying you. "After this... I stop asking."