When Avin pulled his hand from the water, half of it was gone.
Not bitten. Not burned. Gone.
The clean edge where flesh should have been was smooth and pale, veins exposed like red threads under glass. For a heartbeat he felt nothing—no sting, no pain, just confusion. Then realization struck, and agony came with it like a tidal wave.
The nerves screamed awake. It was as if every muscle fiber was being peeled apart, thread by thread, by invisible hooks. It wasn't a metaphor—it was his reality.
Avin's scream shattered the silence of the forest. He stumbled back, splashing wildly like a cat flung into a storm. His voice cracked, raw from terror. But before he could even climb out of the shallows, something caught his leg.
It yanked.
