The forest screamed.
Not with the voice of a single beast, but with thousands—all crying out in fear, in agony, in confusion. The ground quivered beneath them, as though the earth itself had learned terror and now trembled like a cornered animal.
Birdsong had vanished.
There were no chirps, no flutters of wings—only the sharp cracks of splintering trees and the thunderous crashes of ancient trunks falling like the dying gods of nature. Smoke and mist danced with the falling leaves, and through it all, something loomed.
Massive craters, as wide as cottages and deeper than graves, marred the landscape—each a scar left by something that had not come to visit, but to conquer. Fissures split the terrain like open wounds, and frost spread across the forest floor in serpentine tendrils, freezing beasts mid-sprint, turning them into jagged statues of ice and desperation.
Mothers roared for their young.
