Chapter 1: Midnight Howl
# Davina's POV:
I sat alone in my room, and the familiar silence of the empty house felt peaceful.
I held my guitar on my knees and started playing the first chords again. My fingers gripped the neck tighter.
I couldn’t mess up tomorrow, not after everything. This audition had to be it.
My fingers found their rhythm on the strings, and I closed my eyes, imagining myself on stage, leading the band, the crowd cheering my name. I had practiced this song countless times, but tonight felt different.
The clock on my nightstand read 9:00 PM when an eerie sound drifted through the house. My fingers froze mid-chord. I held my breath, trying to listen.
But then, silence again.
I shook my head and continued playing, but the sound came again. It was louder this time, definitely coming from the front door.
My lungs locked. No air. Just silence... and that sound again, closer.
I set down my guitar, every instinct screaming at me to hide... but where? The sounds blocked every escape.
I grabbed the golf club from my closet, my hands trembling as I crept toward the door.
The peephole revealed nothing but darkness. I turned the handle slowly, the hinges creaking as the door swung open.
Then, BOO!
Someone suddenly jumped out from behind the porch pillar. I raised the golf club high above my head, ready to strike, when the intruder let out a horrified scream.
We both screamed together.
"Brittany, what the hell are you doing?!" My throat burned from the force of my shout.
"You weren't answering your phone!" she yelled back, her voice just as loud.
"Why do you have a bat?" She added.
"I thought you were a predator." I panted, lowering the club.
"You almost killed me! I thought you were some serial killer, creeping around."
"A pre... Killer...?" Brittany started, then choked mid-sentence.
"Okay, okay, look, I know it's late, but you've got to hear this." She said in an urgent tone that made me pay attention.
"I saw my dad leave twenty minutes ago. Dispatch called. They're bringing in everyone from their department. Even state police."
"For what?" I asked.
"Two joggers found a body in the woods." She replied.
"A dead body?" The words left my mouth before I could stop them.
"No, a body of water." She said dryly.
"Yes, girl, a dead body." She added.
She pushed past me into the house, and I followed, my curiosity overriding my exhaustion.
"You mean like, murdered?" I asked.
"Nobody knows yet. Just that it was a guy, probably in his twenties." She replied.
"Hold on, if they found the body, what are they looking for?" I asked, my curiosity getting the better of me.
"That's the best part." A mischievous grin spread across her face.
"They only found half." She said.
"We're going, Davina."
Brittany barged past me like she owned the place. She always did that, like the years of friendship gave her the right to know everything about me.
* * *
The wind howled that night. The trees groaned like they were alive, whispering sounds we weren't meant to hear. But I followed her anyway.
Thirty minutes later, we arrived at the edge of the woods.
"We're seriously doing this?" I asked, already knowing the answer.
"You're the one always bitching that nothing happens in this town." She said, moving toward the yellow tape that read: 'DO NOT ENTER.'
"I was trying to get a good night's sleep before practice tomorrow." I hurried to catch up with her.
"Why? Why are you so obsessed with your practice?"
"Because I'm going to make my debut this year. In fact, I'm going to be the leader of our band."
"Hey, that's the spirit." She grinned at me.
"I didn't know you were in a band. You've always been shy about these things."
"I decided to follow my dream. Everyone should have a dream, even a pathetically unrealistic one." I tried to laugh, but it came out shaky.
"Just out of curiosity, which part of the body are we looking for?" I asked.
"Huh! I didn't even think about that." Brittany forced a laugh.
"And, uh, what if whoever killed the body is still out here?" I asked.
"Also something I didn't think about." She replied.
Flashlights approached from a distance, together with faint voices.
"It's the police, my dad will kill me when he finds us here," Britanny said in a low voice, and then grabbed my hand, and we started running, ducking behind trees and bushes to avoid being seen. She was faster. My hand slipped from hers as I struggled to keep up.
"Hey! Brittany, wait," I whispered urgently.
"Shhh. Hide!" she hissed.
I couldn't run anymore. I leaned against a tree, gasping for breath. When I looked up, Brittany was already surrounded by flashlights.
"Who are you?" one of the officers demanded, in a deep voice.
"This one... is mine." A familiar voice cut through the darkness.
Mr. Jackson stepped into the circle of light.
"Dad? I was just..." Brittany was cut off mid-talking.
"I told you to stay in the house." Mr Jackson said.
"Where's your partner in crime?" His flashlight beam swept the surrounding trees as he asked.
"Davina didn't come with me. She said she needed a good night's sleep and is preparing for practice. I came alone."
"I do not believe you." Mr. Jackson's voice sounded tired from years of dealing with his daughter's behavior.
"Davina! Come out here, I know you're hiding."
I pressed myself harder against the tree, holding my breath. The silence stretched on.
"See, Dad? I told you she wasn't here."
Mr Jackson let out a sigh, "Let’s go. We’re going to talk about something called invasion of privacy."
Mr. Jackson's flashlight clicked off, and I heard their footsteps retreating through the underbrush.
"Damn!" I whispered, taking a long breath once I was sure they were gone.
"I shouldn't have come out here."
Thunder rumbled overhead, and the first drops of rain began to fall. Shadows moved where they shouldn’t. Trees twisted into shapes I didn’t recognize. My breath clouded in the air as I spun in place, lost.
Every tree looked the same, every path led nowhere. I walked in circles, my phone's flashlight creating eerie shadows on the ground.
A bird's wing brushed against my hair, and I gasped, spinning around to find empty air. The rain was coming down harder now, soaking through my clothes and making the forest floor slippery beneath my feet.
Then, suddenly, everything went still. Even the rain. The silence was unnatural.
I froze, my heart racing.
Suddenly, birds came from everywhere at once. A black mass of wings and sharp cries, fleeing from something deeper in the woods. I screamed as they swept around me, their talons catching in my hair, their wings beating against my face. I fell to my knees, my phone skittering away into the darkness.
When the last bird had passed, I struggled to my feet, my whole body shaking.
"My phone," I whispered, searching frantically through the wet leaves.
Fog began to roll in, making it even harder to see. I dropped to my hands and knees, feeling blindly through the undergrowth. My fingers closed around something cold and smooth, but it wasn't my phone.
It was skin.
I jerked backward, my heart stopping completely. In the faint moonlight filtering through the fog, I could make out the shape of a human torso, half-covered in leaves and debris.
The missing half of the body.
Fear shot through me. I scrambled to my feet and ran, leaving everything behind, including my lost phone. All I wanted was to get home, to be safe, to pretend I had never seen that horrible thing.
A howl echoed through the trees behind me, long and mournful. I glanced back just long enough to see a large shape moving through the fog...
A wolf.
Then I continued running harder than I had ever run in my life.
The wolf caught up to me easily. It leaped, its weight slamming into me and sending me crashing to the ground. I stared up at its eyes, too terrified to move or to breathe.
Sharp pain shot through my arm as its teeth sank into my flesh. I screamed. Then it vanished into the fog like it had never been there.
I struggled to my feet, clutching my bleeding arm. A voice whispered my name from somewhere in the darkness, but I couldn't tell which direction it was coming from. I stumbled forward, branches tearing at my clothes, until my foot caught on a root and I went down hard.
Something moved under the leaves where I had fallen. I turned to find nothing.
The whispers grew louder, and my vision blurred. I took a step and collapsed, my legs no longer able to support me.
Through the fog and fading consciousness, I saw a figure approaching. A bird perched on his shoulder, its feathers slick with rain. The man wore a long coat that clung to him like a shadow, the edges dissolving into the mist with every step.
His eyes glowed faintly... Inhuman
Darkness coiled around his feet as though the forest itself recoiled from his presence. I tried to speak, tried to ask who he was, but the words wouldn’t come.
"Who... are..."
The world went black.
* * *
