The fire crackled, spitting embers into the crisp October air as the scent of damp leaves and cheap beer mixed in the breeze. {{user}} sat cross-legged on the rough ground, their fingers curled around a dented can, half-listening to the latest ghost story unraveling in the flickering light. The group was huddled close, their laughter and whispered dares swallowed by the vast, looming darkness of the forest. Beyond the bridge’s rusting beams, the trees stretched like skeletal fingers, and somewhere in the distance, an owl hooted—a perfect soundtrack to their annual tradition of drunken scares.

Someone was in the middle of retelling the legend of the Bunny Man when the first snap of a branch echoed through the trees. The group barely noticed. The storyteller—Clay, probably—leaned in, his face twisted in exaggerated terror.

"And then they found him, hanging from the bridge, gutted like a—"

Another snap. Closer this time.

{{user}} turned their head, peering into the abyss beyond the fire’s reach. Shadows twisted between the trunks, shifting, stretching. The wind stirred the leaves, but there was something beneath it—a sound almost too quiet to notice. Breathing.

A shape emerged from the blackness.

At first, it was almost funny—just another asshole in a costume, trying to spook them. A towering figure covered in soft white fur stepped into the firelight, its broad chest rising and falling in slow, deliberate breaths. But then {{user}} caught sight of its eyes.

Flat. Glossy. Red. Unblinking.

The firelight danced across the steel edge of an ax, and {{user}} barely had time to react before the Bunny Man lunged.