Chapter 1: The Silence of the Pale Moon
Night was settling over the mountains.
Not gently—
but like a slow, suffocating weight pressing down on everything beneath it.
Bishan Singh adjusted the bundle of firewood on his shoulder, shifting its weight with a practiced motion. The rough rope bit into his skin, but he didn’t notice. He never did. His axe rested across his other shoulder, its worn handle fitting perfectly into his grip, as if it were an extension of his own body.
This was routine.
This was life.
He turned toward the narrow path that led back to his village—nearly a mile away, winding through trees and broken ground. In the distance, faint and flickering, he could already see them—tiny, trembling dots of light. Lanterns. Oil lamps.
Home.
A faint smile touched his lips.
He could almost smell it already—fresh rotis, hot and soft, pulled straight from the fire. He imagined the warmth of the hearth, the quiet chatter of his children, his wife’s voice cutting through the cold of the evening.
The thought made his steps lighter.
The darkness did not trouble him.
It never had.
He had walked this path a hundred times before. In rain. In fog. In deeper nights than this. The forest was not his enemy. It was familiar. Predictable.
Safe.
Or so he believed.
The ground beneath his feet had softened from the recent rains. Wet earth clung to his steps, releasing a faint, raw scent with every footfall. The trees loomed on either side, their shadows stretching longer as the last traces of light bled from the sky.
Then—
A sound.
Faint.
A rustle.
From the bushes nearby.
Bishan stopped.
Just for a moment.
He tilted his head slightly, listening. The silence pressed in around him, thick and unmoving.
Nothing.
He exhaled through his nose, a quiet scoff escaping him.
“Just the wind…”
He shook his head and stepped forward again.
One step.
Two.
Then—
It came again.
Closer.
Sharper.
The dry snap of something shifting where nothing should have moved.
This time, he turned.
Slowly.
His eyes scanned the dark edges of the bushes, trying to make sense of the shadows.
And then—
He saw them.
Eyes.
Two of them.
Low to the ground.
Burning.
A dull, unnatural yellow—fixed directly on him.
For a single heartbeat, his mind refused to understand what he was seeing.
For another—
his body forgot how to move.
And then—
It struck.
A massive weight exploded out of the darkness, faster than thought, faster than fear.
The force of it lifted him off his feet.
For a brief, impossible moment—he was in the air.
Then something inside him broke.
A sharp, sickening crack tore through the silence.
His spine.
The world vanished beneath him.
He hit the ground—but he did not feel it.
Because something far heavier had already pinned him down.
A suffocating heat engulfed him. A foul, rotting stench filled his lungs—the smell of blood, of decay, of something that had fed too many times to ever hunger cleanly again.
He tried to move.
His body did not respond.
His limbs lay useless, distant, as if they no longer belonged to him.
Through the haze creeping into his vision, he saw it.
Above him.
Watching him.
Those same yellow eyes—closer now. Larger.
Empty.
Unblinking.
He wanted to scream.
A crushing force pressed against his throat.
No sound came.
Something sharp drove into his neck.
Pain flared—brief, blinding—then drowned beneath a spreading warmth.
His own blood.
He could feel it.
Hot.
Pouring.
Soaking into the wet earth beneath him.
The world dimmed.
The trees above blurred into shadows.
The last thing Bishan Singh knew—
was that he was no longer part of the living world.
Then—
The drag began.
His body moved, pulled across the ground like something already discarded. The bushes parted, swallowing him whole.
The darkness closed behind him.
Silence returned.
As if nothing had happened.
Nothing—
Except a single leather sandal.
Left behind.
Half-sunken in the wet soil.
Blood-dark.
Still.
Twelve miles from the nearest British outpost, cradled deep within the lower folds of the Himalayas, lay the village of Kala-Ghat.
By the time night fully descended, the village had already begun to disappear.
Mist rolled down from the mountains like a living thing—thick, pale, and relentless. It crept between the trees, swallowed the narrow paths, and wrapped itself around the mud houses until the entire village seemed to drift inside a silent, shifting haze.
Lanterns flickered weakly against it.
Oil lamps burned low.
Their light tried—and failed—to push the darkness back.
The air was cold. Damp. Heavy with the scent of earth and smoke.
At the center of the village, beneath the sprawling branches of an old banyan tree, a small fire crackled weakly. Its glow barely reached beyond the circle of men gathered around it.
Old Mansoor sat closest to the flames, his frail frame wrapped in a worn shawl. His cloudy eyes were fixed on the narrow path that led into the forest—a dark, silent line cutting into the unknown.
“Bishan Singh is late…”
His voice was thin, almost swallowed by the night itself.
Shivram, sitting beside him, shifted slightly. His fingers moved over his prayer beads, slow and steady.
“He has been late before,” Shivram replied quietly. “The forest delays a man sometimes.”
Mansoor did not look at him.
His gaze remained fixed on that path.
The mist thickened.
The fire cracked softly.
Neither man spoke again.
But something had settled between them.
Not fear—
Not yet.
Just a quiet unease…
that neither of them could explain.
By morning, everything had changed.
The first light of dawn broke weakly over the mountains, pale and cold.
Bishan Singh had not returned.
Bishan Singh’s house remained locked. His cattle stirred restlessly in their stalls, their low, uneasy sounds breaking the morning stillness.
Sardar Gurnam Singh gathered a small group by the well. His face was a mask of grim determination, though his hand trembled slightly as he gripped his iron-shod staff.
“We go to the lower ridge,” he commanded. “Bring the spears. And keep your eyes open
They reached the place where Bishan had last been seen gathering wood.
They searched.
The bushes.
The thickets.
The edges of the path.
Nothing.
No body.
No sign of struggle.
Only silence.
Until—
One of them stopped.
“There…”
Half-buried in the wet soil—
The sandal.
Blood-stained.
Still.
A dark smear stretched from it, dragged across the earth, leading into the thick undergrowth where the light struggled to enter.
Gurnam stepped forward slowly.
He crouched.
His eyes moved across the ground.
And then he saw them.
Tracks.
Large.
Deep.
Too deep.
Pressed into the soil with a weight that no ordinary creature could carry.
They searched there too, but found nothing
A cold unease spread through the group.
“What… is this?” someone whispered.
No one answered.
Gurnam straightened slowly.
It was uneven. A heavy, deliberate drag. A deformity that suggested a creature of immense size moving with a calculated, rhythmic limp.
A faint unease passed through the group.
Panic hadn’t arrived yet.
Just something cold.
“What could do this?” someone asked quietly.
No one had an answer.
From the dense trees nearby, a sound drifted through the mist.
Soft.
Almost nothing.
Like something shifting its weight where it should not be.
The men turned instinctively, spears leveled—but they saw nothing.
Only trees.
Only mist.
Only silence.
“It’s just the forest,” one of them said quickly.
Perhaps to reassure the others.
Perhaps himself.
Gurnam Sindh said:
“We are going back,”
No one argued. Because whatever had happened in those thorns, none of them were ready to face it.
Behind them, the forest remained still.
Watching.
Waiting.
And somewhere within the grey veil—
something moved.
🏔️ CAN'T WAIT FOR CHAPTER 2?
The next chapter drops here in 5 days.
However, if you want to read ahead right now, Chapter 2 is already live on my Patreon! By joining my membership for just $3/month, you will always get every upcoming chapter 5 days before anyone else, every single week.
Unlock weekly advance chapters and support my work.
