The rain had been falling for three days, turning the forest floor into a soaked carpet of black soil and rotting leaves. Ashten moved through it barefoot, shivering beneath a threadbare cloak that had once been a curtain. He was small for his age—nine, though hunger and bruises made him look younger. Each step was a reminder of the home he fled: the slamming doors, the shouting, the sting of his father's belt, the way his mother stared through him as though he were a ghost.
But out here, at least the ghosts were real.
The world had already been strange—everyone grew up knowing that magic rippled beneath the surface of things. People whispered of hedge-mages, spirit-speakers, blood-casters. The wealthy hired sorcerers the way others hired cooks. But five nights ago, the impossible happened.
The sky tore open.
Not in metaphor, not in prophecy, but in a rending scream that every person on earth heard inside their skull. A wound appeared in the heavens — a jagged violet gash like something clawed through reality itself. And from it spilled nightmares.
Villages were swallowed. Caravans were ripped apart. Cities became battlegrounds. Monsters — twisted, chittering, scaled, winged, fanged, howling — poured through rifts and hunted anything that breathed. The world's magic surged violently, as though it were trying to defend itself, or perhaps rejoicing.
And Ashten, bruised and beaten and forgotten by the world long before the monsters came, found himself running from one horror only to meet another.
That night, as thunder rolled like a wounded animal in the sky, Ashten found shelter beneath the roots of an ancient tree. Its bark was carved with runes — old ones, older than the kingdoms, older than the language people spoke now. He didn't understand them, but he felt them — like warmth in his bones, like a hand resting gently on the back of his neck.
He curled up, hugging himself, listening to the rain.
Then he heard it.
A sound that didn't belong to any storm.
A wet, dragging inhale.
Then another.
Ashten froze, barely breathing. The sound came again — closer — accompanied by the crack of a branch and the slurp of something thick moving across the forest floor. The air grew sour, tinged with copper and rot. His heart hammered against his ribs, and for a moment he wished he were back home, where pain was familiar, predictable. Out here, even the darkness felt alive.
Lightning flashed.
And in that split-second burst of white light, Ashten saw it.
A creature stood between the trees — tall, gaunt, its limbs too long, its skin stretched tight like wet parchment over bone. It had no eyes, only a smooth face that twitched as though sniffing him without a nose. Its mouth hung open, filled with needle-like teeth that dripped with rain or saliva or blood — Ashten couldn't tell.
The lightning died.
The darkness returned.
Silence.
Except for the creature's slow, hungry breathing.
Ashten's pulse roared in his ears. His hands trembled. He felt small again — smaller than ever — but something deep inside him stirred. A spark. A defiance. A whisper that said:
Not again. Not this time. Not helpless. Not prey.
He swallowed, muscles tight, mind racing.
And now, Ashten must choose.