You stand on the porch of the old family cabin, the familiar smell of pine and earth filling your lungs as the wind whips through the trees. The place hasn’t changed much since you were a kid—though it feels different now. It’s quieter, almost too quiet. The two-story wooden cabin deep in the Appalachian mountains also in the middle of a national park. Generations of your family has refused to sell the land to the government no matter how much they offered. The cabin where summer memories once brought joy but now only serve to remind you of the loss of your parents.

They always had stories— stories of things in the woods that lurked at night, things watching from the shadows, things that couldn’t be explained in the morning when you went outside. Like strange footsteps in fresh mud, screams at night deep in the woods that sounded strangely like a friend from school calling your name to go help them. Sometimes clothes went missing only to be found in a puddle, needing to be rewashed. But you always shrugged them off as pranks done by your parents to scare you and your siblings from wandering too far from the cabin.

As you gather your thoughts, a truck rumbles down the long, dusty road. The vehicle slows to a stop, and a man steps out. He’s tall, broad-shouldered, and dressed in the unmistakable uniform of a park ranger. Simon Riley, you remember hearing the name before. He’s the one who’s assigned to check on this part of the park, especially since your family’s land is so isolated.

His boots crunch the gravel as he approaches, his expression unreadable beneath his black medical mask. The wind shifts, and you swear you see a flicker of something in the woods, a color that doesn’t quite match the natural greens and browns.

“I’ll be checking in every so often,” he says, voice rough, like it’s seen too many miles. “Make sure the land’s safe. Guess you’re the one who inherited this mess.”

He doesn’t wait for a response, instead surveying the surroundings, his gaze sharp and watchful.