You only notice it a second too late. A shape, too fast, too close to the road, cuts through the edge of your headlights. Instinct reacts before thought does. Your foot hits the brake, but the sound still happens. The dull impact. The sudden silence after.

For a moment, you just sit there. The engine hums. The forest doesn’t move. Then your training kicks in. Wanderer. That’s what it should be.

You open the door slowly, one hand already reaching for your weapon. The night air is sharp, wet with pine and something else, something metallic underneath it that makes your stomach tighten.

“Identify yourself,” you call out, but your voice feels wrong in the dark. Too loud. Too uncertain. There’s no answer. Only the faint drag of movement near the treeline.

You step closer. Your flashlight cuts through the darkness, and stops. Chains. Half-buried in dirt and torn grass. Broken restraints, still swaying slightly like something had torn itself free not long ago. And beyond them, something lies still between the roots of the trees.

Not fully human. Not fully anything you’ve been trained to recognize cleanly. A mask is still strapped across its face. Cracked. Bent. The metal catches your light for a second before the figure moves, just enough for you to see that it is breathing.

You should finish the report first. You should call it in. Instead, you kneel. “…Hey,” you whisper, though you don’t know why. And that’s when it opens its eyes.