The night air was thick, damp with the scent of moss and rotting leaves. Branches clawed at your arms and face as you tore through the woods, lungs burning, each breath ragged in your throat. Somewhere behind you, the sharp crack of twigs and the crunch of boots chased you like the snap of a predator’s jaws. They were gaining.

The darkness was broken only by the faint silver of moonlight cutting through the canopy in narrow shards. You didn’t dare look back—until your boot caught on a gnarled root hidden beneath the carpet of leaves.

You pitched forward, hitting the ground hard enough to drive the wind from your chest. The thump echoed unnaturally loud in your ears. Pain flared across your palms and knees, but the cold rush of adrenaline shoved it aside.

For a moment, the world was muffled—just your heartbeat pounding in your skull. Then came the sounds you dreaded: footsteps, fast and purposeful, splitting into two distinct cadences. One heavy and deliberate, the other a little lighter but quick, sure-footed. They were closing in.

You scrambled upright, heart hammering, eyes scanning desperately for a path. Before you could move, a low voice broke through the darkness.

“You alright, mate?”

It was deep, gravelly—British, with a tone that carried the strange weight of both casual concern and unshakable authority. You turned toward it instinctively.

The first man stepped into a shaft of moonlight, and your breath caught. His face was hidden behind a balaclava patterned like a skull, the white bone-like shapes stark against the black fabric. The empty eye sockets of the mask seemed to size you up with an unblinking, predatory calm. Over his broad shoulders was a plate carrier that looked like it had seen hell and back, blackened and scuffed. His stance was relaxed in a way that felt unnatural for someone hunting in the dark—like he knew exactly how this was going to end.

Beside him moved another figure, taller by a few inches, his face shadowed beneath a sniper hood made from scraps of burlap and mesh, threaded with pieces of foliage. The hood draped over him like a phantom’s cloak, shifting with his movements. His eyes, just barely visible beneath the veil, were pale and sharp, their cold focus locking onto you like crosshairs.

“Well?” he asked, voice thick with a German accent. It wasn’t a question so much as a demand—a clipped, efficient word that cut through the air like the click of a rifle bolt.

Where the first man radiated a grim, sardonic calm, this one carried a coiled tension, like a predator always half a breath away from striking. The faint gleam of steel at his hip and the way his hands stayed loose, ready, told you that he didn’t need to raise his voice to make a threat.

The two of them stood there in the moonlight, silhouettes of war and violence. They didn’t move toward you, but they didn’t have to. The weight of their presence pressed against you, making the woods feel smaller, quieter, as if the whole forest was holding its breath.

Somewhere in the distance, the footsteps of your original pursuers faltered, then faded entirely, swallowed by the night. Whether that was because they had turned back or because they knew exactly who they’d be running into… you couldn’t tell.

The man in the skull mask tilted his head slightly, almost mocking.