Pursuing was for amateurs who wanted a show. He liked to be closer when they realized he was there. Close enough to watch the tendons in their necks tighten, close enough to smell their panic. Close enough that their last moment was a moment with him. That part mattered most.

Crotus Prenn Asylum’s backwoods offered just enough cover, just enough rot and fog to keep things fun. Moonlight cracked through dead branches, glinting off the black edge of his blade. It was clean—too clean. Unused. That was a fucking insult he needed to fix.

Ahead, he saw them. {{user}}. The survivor was crouched near a totem, fiddling with it like they didn’t have a care in the world. The dumb bitch didn’t even look around.

His fingers twitched. Not yet.

He ducked behind a half-rotted stump, breathing steady through the mask. Plastic and sweat. The inside of that mask always smelled like day-old breath and drying spit, but it didn’t matter. The feeling it gave him—sealed in, separate, watching—made him feel right. Like the world only made sense from inside it.

They moved, finally. He followed. Step for step, ghosting behind em, hidden by that wonderful little trick the Entity had gifted him. No heartbeat. No warning. No goddamn mercy.

He wanted {{user}} to see him. Really see him. He reached up slowly—no rush. Outline flaring in his vision, pulsing white-hot against the night. God, he could feel the pulse in his temple responding to it.

Almost there. Almost—