An inhuman scream pierced the night, and Devan felt his heart drop before he realized it was just the bats as they took flight from their perches in the trees. The cold winter night's air in the forest bit his cheeks, turning his skin red and painting his brows and beard in a small layer of ice. Upon further reflection, there were a thousand better ways to accomplish the task he had set out to do, and he had considered none of them before gearing up to venture into the forest at night. The tears of a pretty dark-eyed woman and a missing child was all he needed to hear to flaunt his skills as a hunter. But despite his experience with a bow and a blade, he was keenly aware that these woods were not his own. He didn't have the advantage he had there, the knowledge of every nook and cranny, every ill-placed snare, every hidden creek and fox den. To add to that, something about this forest felt...off. Every step he took made him feel like there was someone at his back, something whispering, warning him to leave, get out before it was too late.

"The longer you stay, the more danger you're in," the trees seemed to groan through their frost-covered branches.

Daven had stumbled upon his situation quite by accident. He had been selling furs alongside the Russian traders he had met in northern Moldova until one morning, he had woken to find his business partners gone, and all of his pelts. He had been lucky to find the village, and even luckier that the people there were kind enough to take him in. In these lands, strangers could be dangerous, and he couldn't help but marvel at such strange luck and hospitality. Sure there had been some suspicious looks, some whispers and glances, but so much was to be expected in these parts.

He had been enjoying some warm mead when the barkeeps daughter had burst through the door in tears, wailing about her missing son. She said he had gone into the forest to play and hadn't returned before sundown as he normally did.

Daven didn't normally consider himself to be a charitable person. The fur trading business didn't reward do-gooders much, and he was of the impression that nature had a way of choosing survivors. He was a survivor, that much was for sure. No one ever looked out for him, so he didn't look out for anyone but himself. Looking out for others got people into situations like these, cold and alone in a foreign forest with an increasing sense of dread and wrongness.

But the girl's watery eyes and warm mead he hadn't paid for make him foolish and brash. Why not? he thought to himself. Why not be the hero for once?

This was why.

He told himself he'd get to the tree the girl had told him the child liked to play at, look around quick, and then go back. If the boy wasn't there, odds were he was too lost to be found. If he was, Daven would get to play hero for the first time in his life and then move on.

Yet with every crunch of his boots across snow, the strange twisting in his gut grew stronger. The howl of the wind seemed more ominous. The whispers of the woods seemed more desperate. Daven had never been much scared of anything, but he had a hunter's sense. He knew when the land had a message, and this forest's message was clear. "Get out."

Just when he was about to listen to his sense, he came upon the tree. It was an old, twisted, dead thing in the middle of a clearing. The bark was pure white, striped of color and covered in snow. The sliver of moonlight pierced through the forest and cast a shadow that made dead branches look like arms, straining to wrap around whatever they could touch. Perhaps most shocking, small trinkets and effigies swayed in the wind, made of bones and twigs. The wood creaked in the wind and the effigies clanged together like windchimes, but the rest of the clearing was strangely silent, not even a hoot of an owl or the crackle of leaves.

At the base of the tree, a small figure was curled into a ball. Letting out a small sigh, Daven felt himself relax a little. So the boy was here. All that unease for nothing. Stepping into the clearing, he called out. "Hey. Hey, you. Your mom's worried sick about you."

No response. The form at the trunk didn't so much as twitch. Unease returning, Daven stepped closer. "I don't know your name," he said, "but your mother sent me to look for you. Said you were supposed to be home at sundown."

Still no response. Growing frustration propelled Daven forward. "Come on," he said gruffly, reaching down to put his hand on the boy's shoulder.

He pulled at his form, but the boy didn't budge. Then, slowly he turned his head and looked at Daven. He smiled.

Daven stumbled back. Black eyes and sharp teeth, a mouth of a thousand knives. The hunter fell onto his back and scrambled backwards through the snow. The boy slowly rolled over and stood to his feet, and as he did, his form seemed to grow. Bones creaked and stretched, cracking like dry branches underfoot as the figure transformed into something grotesque. Legs as long as spears, white as snow, arms gangly and thin. It was no boy at all. A wendigo.

Suddenly, the villagers' kindness seemed more stilted, more practiced. The maiden's tears seemed less genuine. No one was kind to strangers in these parts. He should've seen it before. Shouldn't have wanted to play the hero.

The wendigo tilted its head, saliva dripping from between its pointed teeth, it's mouth stuck in a perpetual grin. Despite it's inhuman smile, it's eyes looked strangely tormented. "Hungry," it croaked. "So..hungry."

Daven ran. Through the branches, blindly, he desperately searched for something, anything to save him. The trees seemed to grab at him, twigs cutting his face as he blindly barged through the thicket.

He did not run fast enough.

Just before the wendigo tore out his innards, he briefly wondered how many other would be heroes fed the forest.