The blood was drying on his hands.
Uriel sat motionless atop Thessa's cooling body. It was his first kill. He should've felt something—guilt, remorse, shame. But there was nothing. Just silence. A cold, hollow void where panic should have been.
All he thought about now was survival.
He grabbed his mangled clothes and pulled them back on.
If what Thessa said was true… it'll be here any minute now.
But that wouldn't be fast enough.
If they checked the tent—even in one minute—he'd be dead. He had to act. Had to summon the monster now. Force it to attack before they found him.
Uriel's eyes scanned the tent until they landed on a shallow wooden bowl, the inside crusted with grime. He snatched it, turned Thessa's head, and tilted it toward the wound in her neck. Blood poured freely, thick and hot. He let it fill the bowl until it sloshed over the edges, down his arm in crimson ribbons.
Then, he screamed.
"Varek! Help! Thessa—she doesn't look so good!"
It was a stupid lie. No one "looked sick" after being stabbed through the fucking neck. But panic didn't care about logic. He just needed them to come running.
Boots thundered outside. The tent flap ripped open. Varek stormed in, double-headed axe in hand. The other two followed—faces drawn tight with dread.
They saw Thessa first. Slumped. Motionless. Bleeding.
They didn't see Uriel.
He pressed himself against the wall by the entrance, blood-filled bowl in hand, heart hammering in his chest.
Then he moved.
Uriel lunged and hurled the bowl's contents. Blood splashed across Varek and the others—wet and heavy, the smell of copper sharp in the air. It drenched their faces, their clothes. For a breathless second, they stood frozen in horror.
Uriel didn't wait.
He slipped through the flap and disappeared into the dark beyond the campfire.
There, in the orange glow of firelight, he waited. Chest rising and falling in rapid bursts. But his lips curled into a crooked smile.
"Did you like the taste of the meal I served you?" he called out, his voice sharp, mocking. "Just wanted to say thank you… for that strip of dried meat you so lovingly gave me."
The firelight danced across his face—half-shadowed, wild, feral.
Varek stormed out of the tent, face streaked with blood. His hands trembled, rage and grief warring behind his eyes.
"Why?" he shouted. "We took you in! We fed you! Thessa protected you from me—she was gonna give you clothes—"
"Don't fucking patronize me," Uriel snapped.
His voice dropped, low and venomous.
"That bitch didn't protect me. She saw a toy. A plaything. And you—you knew damn well there were no clothes in there that'd fit me. You let her take me, knowing exactly what she wanted to do."
He laughed. Sharp. Hollow.
"If she got bored of me? If I refused? You would've killed me. I saw it in your eyes. My eyes… they're different. They see through your filthy bullshit."
Varek didn't care. His grip tightened on the axe as he dragged it through the dirt and raised it high overhead.
Uriel barely dodged the swing. The blade carved the air above him, missing by inches. If that thing hits me… the plan's fucked. He couldn't afford even one mistake.
He kept moving. Barely slipping past blow after blow, his malnourished body screaming for rest. His breath came in ragged gasps, limbs shaking with exhaustion.
And then the others joined in.
"Fuck," Uriel hissed under his breath. Did Thessa lie?!
No. He forced himself to breathe. She didn't. I can't think like that. I just need to hold out. Just a little longer.
Then it happened.
The forest went still.
Not silent—still. Like the trees themselves were holding their breath.
Uriel didn't stop. He ducked beneath another swing, dirt flying as he rolled back. One of the men charged, blood on his shirt and murder in his eyes, but Uriel twisted past him, chest heaving, eyes darting toward the woods.
The shadows moved.
Not from wind. Not from footsteps.
From presence.
Something peeled out of the tree line, like the forest was giving birth to a nightmare. It crawled first—limbs spidered out, dragging its knotted fingers through the dirt. Fingers that twitched at their tips like dead branches caught in a phantom breeze.
The men didn't see it. Not yet.
They were still focused on Uriel.
Good.
Uriel edged closer to the fire, forcing them to keep their backs to the forest.
He saw it clearly now.
A ripple in the world.
Ten feet tall when upright, but hunched and twitching, too broken to stand, too ancient to fall. Mist clung to it like rotting cloth. Its limbs folded in ways that defied anatomy. Its bones didn't crack—they creaked like rusted iron under weight.
Its skin shimmered—translucent like fogged glass stretched over sinew and pulsing, crimson veins.
But the face…
A porcelain mask fused into its skull. Etched in ancient runes, hairline cracks webbed across its surface. The smile was carved too wide. The eyeholes were too hollow. The expression was wrong—like it had been sculpted by something that didn't understand what a human face should look like.
One of the men turned.
He froze.
Too late.
With a soundless snap, the creature blinked. One second at the edge of the trees. The next—at the edge of the firelight.
No sound.
No breath.
Only the smell of blood and the suffocating weight of dread.
Uriel didn't flinch. His golden eyes caught the firelight and gleamed with something not quite joy… not quite madness.
"Right on time," he whispered.
The Stalker's mouth unhinged—not with a crack, but with a fluid, boneless slither—and latched onto the nearest man's neck.
It didn't bite.
It drank.
Slurping like a leech, its twitching fingers curling around his shoulders as it sucked the life out of him. The man gurgled, eyes bulging, too shocked to scream.
The second man pissed himself.
Varek, still dripping with blood, lifted his axe in trembling hands and screamed.
Uriel didn't wait to see how it ended.
He ran.
Into the dark. Into the woods. Into whatever the hell came next.
He laughed under his breath as he ran, feet pounding the earth, mist curling around his ankles.
Wouldn't it be funny, he thought, if they killed each other?
Wouldn't that make this week so goddamn easy?
But he wasn't stupid. He wasn't naïve.
He knew better.
He'd have to keep running.
He'd have to survive.
At least until the terrain shifted again.