Prologue
The forest was like a giant room made of shadows, old and scary. The kid ran so hard his lungs felt like they were on fire. His feet tripped over twisted tree roots that felt like wooden hands reaching out of the dirt to pull him down. High above, the branches of the giant pine trees were so thick they blocked out the moonlight. It left him in a heavy, greenish darkness. Every time he looked back, the shadows seemed to move, like something heavy was pressing against his back. He was sure something was hunting him, but the path felt like it would never end—just a circle of rough bark and the sound of wind in the needles.
Then, without warning, the wall of trees disappeared.
The kid stumbled out of the bushes, almost falling over as he entered a sudden, spooky clearing. The change was strange and sudden. After the tight, dark woods, the world opened up into a wide field of tall grass. It should have made him feel better, but the silence here was even scarier than the noise of the woods. Overhead, a huge full moon hung like a silver coin among the cold stars, shining a ghostly light across the waving grass.
As he stopped to catch his breath, the kid looked down and felt his stomach sink. The field looked like a graveyard of open dirt. Someone had been digging—hundreds of holes, deep and rough, were all over the ground. It looked like a wild animal had been frantically searching for something lost. The smell of wet dirt and rot filled his nose, mixing with the sharp feeling of his own fear.
He spun around in a circle, his eyes searching everywhere. He felt a sudden, heavy danger coming from the dark edges of the field where the moonlight ended. Then, he heard it: a clear, snapping sound of dried leaves. Small, slow steps were coming closer.
Panic hit him like a cold shock. The kid turned to run, but his foot found nothing but air. A hole, hidden by a layer of fallen leaves and sticks, swallowed his leg. He let out a loud groan as he fell backward. The air knocked out of his chest as his back slammed into the hard dirt.
Gasping for air and feeling his head spin, the kid tried to stand up. He looked up from the bottom of the pit, seeing the silver moon right above him. A dark shape stepped into view, blocking out the stars. The last thing he saw before everything went black was a flash of cold metal—the blade of a shovel—and the shine of a mask that seemed to soak up all the moonlight.
