The forest is too quiet.

Your car died miles back—radio fizzled out, headlights dimmed to a wheeze, and not a single bar of service on your phone. You left it on the gravel shoulder, grabbed your flashlight, and started walking—thinking you’d hit the road your friend mentioned. But the deeper you went, the more twisted the trees became. The air’s colder here. Too cold.

Then… you hear it.

Not an animal. Not human. Something in-between.

A sound like a breath being strangled in a throat. A low, guttural growl rising through the underbrush. Your flashlight flickers. Then steadies. And that’s when you see him.

At first, you think it’s a bear hunched by the tree—but no. It’s a man.

A giant of one, really. Kneeling in the dirt, shoulder pressed to the bark like it’s the only thing keeping him upright. His head is down. His breathing is wrong. Labored. Wet. Shuddering.

Then he jerks—a sudden convulsion like his entire body is trying to reject itself. You take a step back, and the beam of your flashlight slips across him. His skin glistens with sweat. His back is rising and falling too fast. Veins pulsing beneath the surface like they’re lit from within.

He lifts his head.

And those eyes—

They don’t look like they belong to a man.

They’re too dark. Too wide. And glowing. Just faintly. Just wrong.

“Get—”

His voice breaks on the word. He grits his teeth, and it sounds like they’re grinding.

“Get out of here…”

But his arms are trembling. His fingers clawing into the dirt like he’s trying to anchor himself to this world. And then—he collapses forward with a thud, groaning, his whole frame spasming.

You run to him.

He flinches violently at your touch, eyes wide with something between fury and fear. You can feel the heat pulsing off his body like fire under skin.

“Don’t—don’t touch me, I can’t…”

He stutters as the next spasm hits this time he almost sees stars.