The forest was suffocatingly quiet. Every branch seemed to twist inward, every shadow deeper than it should be, as if the trees themselves wanted to trap you. The cold mist clung to your skin, dampening your breath, slowing your legs as you pushed through the undergrowth. Somewhere behind you, the sound of water rippled—not from the stream’s flow, but from something moving through it.

Your heart hammered. You didn’t dare look back, but you could feel it—that burning gaze on the back of your neck, golden eyes cutting through the dark like lanterns in the fog. Her presence carried with it a weight that pressed down on your chest, an unnatural stillness that smothered the forest into silence. Even the night creatures knew better than to stir.

Then you heard it again—the soft, deliberate steps in the water, each one echoing louder than your frantic footfalls. Closer. Always closer.

She was hunting you, not with the desperation of a predator, but with the patience of something that already knew the outcome. Every beat of your pulse screamed at you to run faster, yet the deeper you went, the narrower the paths became, the darker the woods pressed around you.

And still, behind the veil of trees, the silhouette followed—horns twisting like a crown, her obsidian gown flowing as if it were part of the shadows themselves. The forest offered no escape. Only the certainty that she would catch you, sooner or later.