Aya twisted to look for the source of the sound, finding what she sought at the edge of the outcrop.

The thing was tall, dark, and thin, standing still in the moonlight that shone through the canopy. Black rags obscured the creature’s frame, but Aya could see the gleam of metal underneath it. A guttural growl echoed from the other end of the road.

The pale thing was tall, too tall, it’s limbs growing from merely unnatural proportions to terrifying lengths as it stood. Its skin rippled, spines and horns growing all over its body as it shuddered. The things snuffled and rumbled as it began to turn, its bowed legs crunching through the leaves.

Its head rotated with a sickening crunch, rotating past what a normal neck should’ve allowed. The face that snarled was a lumpy misshapen thing, one half smooth and curving inward, as if its skull was stoved in. The other half was a great gash, lined with molars and incisors that jutted out at every angle. A single, recessed eye glared out at them, rolling nauseatingly to focus on the dark thing beyond Aya.

Its body twisted and contorted as it turned, its bowed legs bending as it lowered itself onto all fours. Its arms spread out on the rock, thin nails gripping and flexing. Its shoulder popped and flexed, the ribs flexing in and out as it gave a shuddering hiss. It drew back onto its hind legs, and, with barely a further sound, it charged.

Aya screamed for the first time, as the black thing rushed to meet it. The pale thing screeched, an intolerable, violent sound, like tearing rope and rending metal. Its too-long arms flailed as the cloaked shadow danced round it. Aya was struggling with the sleeping fur, tangled as it was around her legs. Finally, she managed to unwind them and roll off the edge of the rock.

Blindly, she stumbled down the hill, half-sliding, half-running, the wet leaves clinging to her feet. The air was bitterly cold, far colder than it should’ve been, even at this early of an hour. It tore at here with every breath, clinging to the inside of her chest.

She had very little time to process all of this, of course. A body smashed down through the trees, forcing Aya to swerve as she screamed. Her footing lost, she pitched down the hill, slamming again and again into the ground. Something sharp smacked into her head, light exploding behind her eyes.

She felt nauseous, but was fairly sure she was lying on the ground. She tried to struggle up, her limbs feeling weak and far away. As she opened her eyes, the world spun, and the screams of the thing echoed from behind her. She needed to get up, to get away from this terrible place. Her hands grasped aimlessly for any rock or tree she could use to pull herself up.

Then something pulled on her, breaking her out of her cold stupor. She screamed once more, trying to beat off what she was sure was pale, dead, hungry creature.

“Aya, stop hitting! It’s me! It’s me!” came her mother’s voice.

With that, she went limp as a dead fish, allowing herself to be dragged from the scene. Her left temple still throbbed from where she hit it, but the world seemed to be slowing. She could now see the thrashing of the pale thing behind her, lying on the forest floor.

The the black thing fell onto it with a wet crunch.

The pale creature screamed again, but was given no respite as its aggressor raised a arm high. Its fingers were metal blades, ropes and cloth, metal bars and wooden branches outlined in moonlight as the cloth drew back. It brought its arms down, driving them into the misshapen head, and pulled.

Dark blood splattered across the tress and leaves. The thing screamed and hissed and rattled as is was butchered by whatever lay underneath the rags. Eventually, when the stench of blood was rich in the pair’s nostrils, and the leaves were even more drenched, the black thing stood still.

Once more, the rags settled over its frame, hiding most if not all of its secret. Even with the lack of detail, Aya knew that it was looking at her, even if it didn’t have any eyes to look at. Her mother’s hand trembled on her shoulder, waiting for whatever terrible fate that was coming for them. But the thing remained still, almost peaceful, standing above its dirty work.

It’s arm slowly raised, like a puppet’s on a string, and pointed with one long metal finger to the east. No sound or word came from it, but Aya understood. It wanted them to move, to leave, to go the east. Aya considered heading in the opposite way, but with a glance at the remains underneath it, choose to follow its direction.

“Let’s go,” she said, tugging her mother in the direction indicated.

“Wait, what? How do you know where to go?” her mother asked.

“It told me,” she said, then upon seeing the look of apprehension on her mother’s face, “if it wanted to kill us, it would’ve done it already.”

There were no further objections after that, as they set off up the hill. The way was slow and hard, made worse by the lingering remnants of nausea for Aya. The chill clung to them, almost as if it was attempting to drag them down, back to the corpse of the pale thing. After retrieving what furs and food they could from their camp, they set off back toward the village.

“What was that thing?” her mother asked as she bundled the furs around herself.

“I don’t know,” Aya said, her teeth chattering, “but it did not mean us well.”

Hiking was a boring, exhausting, and in-general a far more painful experience without the horse. She felt sorry for the animal, and hoped that the end was mercifully quick. As they clambered over the ridge, the cold began to fall away. Down they went, into a deep part of the wood.

They stopped sometime later, in a clearing of trees down where a creek flowed. Aya was heaving, out-of-breath from the relentless pace they’d held to the clearing. Her mother was leaning against a tree, better, but not by much, than her daughter.

“What do we do now?” Aya said.

“We can’t go the way we wanted to, that much is clear,” her mother said. Her face began to crumble as tears began to well in her eyes, “I’m sorry. I don’t know what to do now.”

Aya was struck by the sudden display of distress, and rushed over to her to cling to her.

“We can do this. Let’s just go back home. Okay?” she said trying to steel herself against the rising tide of panic.

Just as she finished saying that however, a bolt of cold settled into the clearing. As Aya looked around, she noted that the trees up the slop where now ringed with mist. It poured down the slope, pale hungry fingers wrapping around the base of the trees. Even through the darkness of the morning, she could see things moving in the among the trunks.

“Run,” Aya said, pulling her mother away.

They began to scale another slope, breaking out from the other side of the clearing onto a wider stretch of forest. Aya glanced back once as they set out across the plateau, noting that the clearing was already invisible. The cold raged at her, demanding her return to its embrace.

Panic was fully in bloom now within her, a terrible flower coiling in her insides. At this point, she wasn’t entirely sure if her heart was hammering from the running, or the fear. She tasted acid in the back of her throat, and had to fight the urge to vomit. She could feel the things moving in the darkness behind he, their jerking movements accented by hissing growls.

Then, a sound broke through the nest of vocalizations, sounds of horns, sound of hooves galloping and horses winning. The mist by that point had consumed the pair, who were running blind across the plain. They could no longer tell what was easy or west, north or south, nor where the sound was coming from.

And then she was alone.

She wasn’t sure when her mother had vanished but it served to prick her eyes with desperate tears.

“Where are you?! Where are you?!” her mother called from somewhere in the mist.

“I’m here!” she called back, though to no effect.

And something lumbered toward her out of the mists. Its arms stretched and shaped and twisted as they craned toward her. Its face was a spiral horror of fingers and teeth and eyes.

Aya ran harder and faster than she’d even had in her life.

But the monster was chasing her, roaring as it smashed through the trees behind her. She could feel its hunger radiating off it, and clear and evident as the cold that gripped her.

In front of her, something else appeared from the darkness. She spared a brief thought as to whether her luck had finally run out. But the shape was wrong, and instead of growling, it was whinnying. She dove out of the way as the rider charged past her, colliding with the thing with a thud.

As she turned to look back at the melee from her bed of leaves, she found a length of solid steel pointed at her throat. Not entirely sure what the response, she merely held her hands up, and attempted to whimper. At the hilt of the sword gripped a hand, and that hand was attached to an armoured woman who glared down at her. Upon recognizing that she was in fact, not a monster, she sheathed the blade and helped her up.

“Are you al-” she began, before glancing down at her wrists.

The edge of her cloak had slipped up with her sleeve during the mad tumble. The scars had opened, blazing with a pale light and pain that she’d not noticed. It felt like her arms were being covered by hot oil.

“I’m don’t- I mean you no harm,” Aya said quickly, as the woman took a nervous step back, her hand returning to the hilt. But before she could decide whether or not that this sudden display of luminosity constituted an enemy, a further monster emerged.

This one was thin and snappish, its limbs long and thinner than both creatures before. They struck out at the branch around it, coiling and uncoiling like whips. The woman drew her sword, shoved Aya to the ground, and steadied herself as the thing barreled toward them.