—The Kitchen—
The boar corpses told an impossible story—one that made no sense at all. By the structure of their bones and the wear of their teeth, one was barely a few years old. The other, at most, a few decades. Decades. Not centuries.
It defied every principle I knew.
There was no time to dwell. I dragged the bodies outside and reduced them to ash with focused flame. As the last tendril of smoke dissolved into the pre-dawn grey, I returned to the inn's main hall. A single door led deeper in, presumably to the kitchen.
Pushing it open, the scene on the cutting table stole my breath.
A little girl in a red coat was bound with coarse rope, laid out on the cold stone surface. Beside her head rested a cleaver, its edge honed to a wicked gleam. She had been laid out like livestock, meant for slaughter. Only the younger monster's obsessive craving for "city meat"—for Clara—had delayed her fate.
I moved quickly, fingers finding the pulse in her neck. Warm skin. A steady, thready beat. Alive, but deeply unconscious, shock having pulled her far beneath the surface. I called to her softly twice, but she didn't stir.
As I gathered her into my arms, a faint, scraping sound came from the large grain-storage cabinet in the corner.
The door was unlatched. I pulled it open.
Two figures, skeletal and bound, were crammed inside. Gags covered their mouths, but I recognized them instantly: the true innkeeper and his son.
I tore the tape away. The son, simple-minded, let out a weak, animal whimper. The father gasped, tears cutting through the grime on his face. "Th-thank you... Someone finally came... I thought... we'd die in there..."
"What happened?" I asked, slicing through their ropes.
"M-monsters!" he stammered, his whole body shaking. "Man-eaters! They took our faces... killed here... ate..."
"They're gone," I said, gripping his shoulder. "Destroyed."
His sunken eyes widened. "Truly?"
"You're free. That's proof enough."
I helped them out. Their atrophied legs buckled, forcing them to lean heavily against the wall.
---
——The Impostors——
Back in the lobby, I settled the unconscious girl on a sofa, ensuring her breathing was steady before turning to the innkeeper. He cradled a mug of hot water, his knuckles bone-white.
"When did they come? Tell me everything."
He took a shuddering breath. "November 27th. A terrible blizzard. The roads were closed. No one should have been out... but just past midnight, there was a knock. I thought it was a neighbor."
He swallowed hard. "An old man and a boy. Covered in snow, barefoot... The old one said they were starving, asked for food. I took pity. Let them in, warmed some stew."
"They just... sniffed it. Said it wasn't good. Asked if I had anything... *better*." His voice dropped to a whisper. "That's when I knew. But it was too late."
His son beside him began to twitch and moan, reliving the terror. The innkeeper held him close, his own words growing ragged.
"I tried to make them leave... and then they... changed. Their bodies twisted... stretched... Until they wore our faces. Our clothes." He shut his eyes, as if against a blinding light. "They tied us up. Said... human flesh was the true delicacy. I fainted. In all my years... I'd never seen such a thing."
"You woke in the cabinet?" I prompted.
A jerky nod. His trembling became violent. "They ran the inn... as us. Picked off women traveling alone. Killed them. Ate them... raw." A sob hitched in his throat. "They forced pork on us to keep us alive. But human flesh... we never touched it. Never!"
He looked at me, desperate for belief. "The old stories say... it gets in your blood. More addictive than any drug. We'd have rather starved."
I studied him closely. There was a hollow, exhausted look to him—the kind that comes from long-term terror—but none of the twisted frenzy that follows cannibalistic corruption. He was telling the truth.
By his account, the impostors had claimed five victims in the past month: the two video bloggers before Christmas (the phantoms I'd seen), two other solo female travelers, and a young local woman.
Dawn light began seeping through the dusty windows. The innkeeper recognized the rescued girl and promised to return her to her family. As I turned to head upstairs for what little rest I could salvage, he called out, his voice thin with lingering dread.
"Sir... why did they keep us alive?"
I paused on the steps. "Their transformation was incomplete. They likely needed you alive—your presence—to keep their disguises stable. You were anchors." I glanced back. "And they seemed to have a... particular taste. Only women."
He absorbed this with a numb nod. I added, "What happened here stays here. For your safety, and to ensure nothing else is... attracted to this place."
"I understand," he whispered, the promise hollowing out his voice. "Nothing happened."
---
——An Unfinished Dawn——
My attempt at a quiet return was futile. The door's click woke Clara.
"Rhan?" she mumbled, sitting up. "Where are you going?"
"...To wash up."
"Wash up?" She fumbled for her phone. "It's 6:30? I slept that long?" She swung her legs out of bed, ending any hope I had for sleep.
Soon, Jasper and Michael emerged from their rooms. Michael looked rested. Jasper did not. His eyes were raw, his gaze distant.
"Rough night?" I asked.
Jasper rubbed his temples. "Rhan... did you go out last night?"
Clara looked at me. I didn't answer directly. "Why?"
"I heard footsteps. Women talking. I went to check..." He trailed off, uneasy. "It was like something shoved me back into my room. Then... I had this dream. A bad one."
"A dream?"
"Three women. Sitting around my bed, weeping. I couldn't see their faces, but their grief... it was immense. They cried until I woke up."
"And where you woke?"
"In bed. But exhausted. As if I'd been listening to them all night."
I said nothing. The other three victims. But why appear to Jasper? Coincidence? Or was there something about him that drew their residual sorrow?
At checkout, the real, gaunt innkeeper and his son drew puzzled glances from my companions. I heard their muttered confusion—"He looks so different... like he shrunk overnight"—but offered no explanation, simply handing over the keycards.
---
Once we were driving, putting distance between us and the inn, Clara finally broke. "What *really* happened last night?"
I gave them a pared-down version of events.
"We shared a roof with... those things?" Clara paled.
"It's the timeframe that doesn't fit," Jasper mused, staring out the window. "A few decades of cultivation isn't enough for a full transformation. It's not possible."
"Could it be a kind of blessing ritual?" Clara said, recalling something from the Zero Boundary Archive. "Like that serpent that was elevated after a hundred people unknowingly wished it well?"
I shook my head. "That kind of ascension depends on goodwill—on earning positive intent from people. Those two creatures were driven by hatred. They fed on humans. No one would ever offer them blessings. Not in this world."
"What if it's the place itself?" Jasper proposed, turning back. "Something in the area... accelerating their change?"
Michael, who knew these mountains, frowned. "I've worked these parts for years. Never heard tales of shapeshifters here. If there was some... power spot, we'd know."
"Perhaps whatever it is," I said quietly, watching the forest blur past, "has only recently come to the surface."
Animals evolving into something more was supposed to belong to another age—an age long past. Its occurrence now—first the serpent, now the boars—could not be mere chance.
But the immediate mystery remained Michael's excavation. This local disturbance, this wrongness in the mountains, would have to wait. For now, the road ahead led elsewhere.
Yet as the car rounded the final bend, the inn vanishing behind a ridge, I caught a last glimpse in the side mirror.
In an upper window, a pale smudge lingered against the dark glass.
A trick of the light.
Perhaps.
Or perhaps a final, watching eye.