Prologue
The town was smaller than I had imagined, yet it had everything you needed. One main street, a few stores with dusty windows, two so called restaurants, a private clinic that shared the same building as the pharmacy, one big building where all classes are held, and a forest that seemed to swallow the horizon.
I parked the car on the driveway, facinated by the forest. That was the reason I came here - the forest. To disappear, to start over, to pretend that the past was nothing more but a nightmare I could leave behind.
I took two boxes and carried them into my very own rented house. The wood creaked under my steps and it smelled of pine and smoke, like memories I didn’t own. The silence pressed against me, heavy and unfamiliar. No traffic passing by. No shouting neighbours. Only the whisper of leaves outside.
Night fell quickly. I had barely started unpacking the boxes or finished my dinner when the darkness came. I had just taken a shower and sat in the kitchen when the howling started.
It wasn’t the distant cry of a dog. It was deeper, rougher - somerhing that reached under my skin and pulled. The sound made the hair on my arms rise, and for one insane moment, it felt like it was calling for me.
I stepped onto the porch, barefoot, shivering in the cold air. The forest loomed in front of me, dark and endless. I could barely hear something moving between the trees - too fast, too easy and silent.
Bright, golden eyes caught the moonlight.
I froze. My heart slammed against my ribs, every instinct telling me to run, but my body refused to obey. Those eyes locked on mine, glowing, unblinking, more animal than human… yet not entirely either.
And then, as quickly as they appeared, they vanished into the shadows.
I stood there in the darkness, trembling, certain of only one thing: whatever lived in those woods had seen me.
And I would never have thought my life would come to change.
