Ghilya spotted a large log nearby the river from her position halfway up the tree. True to her word after she jumped down there was a fallen banyan tree over fifty metres away that had its top half submerged in the river. Its lower half clung fiercely to the embankment through its dried-up, withered roots like thousands of spindly fingers digging into the earth for support to not be dragged away by the current. She promptly sat down atop of the log which had caused it to make uncertain creaks giving Thomas, Clarke, and myself some modicum of doubt as to the log's viability as a makeshift bench.

“We can stop here for the time being,” She said cheerily.

Both Thomas and Clarke’s faces were a bright shade of cherry red dripping with perspiration that made several parts of their clothes have wet patches. Clarke had been the most exhausted of the three of us, Thomas looked as though he had just finished a good workout at the gym whereas I… Well, I could honestly say that my body ached, at least the parts that weren’t synthetic.

Clarke sat down on one of the thick branches before placing his head between his knees to recoup from the day’s hike.

It had been a day since Ghilya and I returned to the others. And although we never spoke of my apology or actions that caused her to storm off in the first place I did catch her glimpsing menacingly toward my direction when I ate a muesli bar several hours ago before putting the wrapper to the bottom of my backpack. I made a mental note to find something to relegate my rubbish there in case any of it got out.

Ever since returning to the group I have found myself continuously checking behind us almost every fifteen minutes. The strange tormented howl that had turned a forest from a peaceful and relaxing portrait of nature, except for the dangerous dragon that tried to kill me, into a twisted shadow of itself with every withered tree trunk hiding an indescribable monster and every bird call into a warning and a threat. Every time I heard a noise it was enough to make me raise my rifle and scan the area for any signs of the creature. Neither Ghilya nor I spoke of that horrendous sound to each other or to the others, I figured we would have to tell them eventually as Thomas was starting to notice my twitchy and alert behaviour.

Ghilya pulled out a leather water container off her hip and took a swig of its contents before putting it away. Thomas knelt by the edge of the embankment and dunked his head in the crystal-clear water in a ridiculous effort to cool off.

“We’ll need the rest for what comes next.“ Ghilya continued.

I looked over at her with a curious expression. Did she mean the thing we heard, or was there something more to our journey, we were close to the foot of the Great Dividing Mountain range so I had to assume that she knew something about our hike that would require a greater resting period. Rather than press her for information I decided to let her tell us when she thought she was good and ready, or whenever she felt like springing it on us at the most inconvenient of moments. She was like a guide or a mountaineer who was both good and bad at their job in equal measures. Good in the sense that they knew what they were doing, what to expect, how to prepare for it, and how to accommodate for any incidents and how to counter them. And paradoxically they were bad in the sense that they didn’t take anything seriously, always joked around, always partially inebriated or kept alcohol close to them at all times.

I approached her and she cocked her head towards me. Her eyes met mine and I realised I nearly forgot what I was going to ask her. I cocked my head towards the thicket on my left and she swung herself off and landed with a thump and followed me several metres away from Clarke and Thomas.

She placed her hands squarely on her hips as she gave a nod of acknowledgement. “What’s up?”

“What’s up? ” I parroted. “Well how about the fact we haven’t spoken since we heard that terrifying sound, its like you are actively avoiding me so you wouldn’t talk about it.”

“What sound?” She asked curiously.

Was she playing dumb or perhaps was she just trying to mess with me?

“Th- the horrifying sound yesterday! What else do you think I was talking about?” I responded with a raised voice before regulating it so the others wouldn’t hear me. “Y’know, the screech that made us both want to run forever?”

“Oh! That,” She said with a sudden expression of understanding. In a millisecond her expression ran through multiple emotions ranging from surprise to understanding to hesitance before settling on uncertainty. “Yeah… we uhh, I think we should keep it between us for now. No need to worry the others about this if we don’t need to.”

“Why? Ghilya, if there is something dangerous out there then they should know so they can help deal with it when the time comes.”

“Look, I cannot get into detail. Not yet anyway. But believe me when I tell you that its for the best that we don’t tell them. At least for now, that is. It is both surprising and disturbing that it’s this far out from its usual hunting grounds. That might either be a blessing or a sign we are in for a rough journey ahead.”

I had taken note of her evasiveness, it was an uneasy sensation to feel like there was something critical needed and yet be denied.

“But whyyy?” I said, I even noticed how whiny it sounded but it wasn’t an unreasonable request. “What is that thing?”

“Just trust me,” She said. “The last thing this group needs is everyone looking over their shoulders every time a tree rustles or a bird sings its song.”

Without even knowing it my lungs burned after holding my breath in for too long. I let it as I surrendered to her logic and knew that there was no wearing her down anytime soon. Never mind the fact she pointed out the shoulder looking which made me wonder if she noticed that I was doing that before just like my brother did? Damn, and here I thought I was careful.

“I like to think I am a bit more emotionally resilient than most normal people but when I heard that noise it felt like every part of me was screaming to run and not look back. Whatever was capable of producing such a sound was something else, something unnatural to this world.” I stated.

“Unnatural,” Ghilya parroted raising an eyebrow and folding her slender arms across her chest. “like how humans view the rest of my kind and everything that isn’t them as unnatural?”

My face cringed, annoyed and frustrated. “You know what I mean!”

She said nothing, only looking at me as though I had just said something racist that I didn’t intend to be. I could sense she was hurt somewhat by that even if it wasn’t intended to be directed at her.

She turned around and taken only two steps away from me before saying. “When the time is right, I’ll tell you three everything.” And then proceeded to sit back down on the log.

I opted to sit down on the ground with my legs spread out. Thomas, whose head was drenched with water looked at the two of us and asked about our whereabouts before insinuating we engaged in some discreet nooky. I chucked a small pebble I found at him which prompted Thomas to chuckle. Taking full advantage of the down time I reached into my backpack and took out a protein bar while counting the rest of the ones I had left. This in turn sparked in me the need to take note of my inventory and began running through my head a checklist of all the things I had while counting how much of one thing I had.

But the thing that caused my eyes to widen was the fact I was running low on spare ammunition. My submachine gun only had two more magazines, not including the one currently inserted into the weapon.

Shit, I thought I had a lot more than that, where did they go? Oh… right, I ended up using a few on that Dragon yesterday. Hopefully I won’t need them any longer in future.

Perhaps it might have been a jinx on myself when I thought that but as I was someone who didn’t believe in those kinds of superstitions. Besides, given our circumstances, I honestly failed to see how it could have been worse for us. In the corner of my eye, there was a sudden burst of motion that caught my attention. I looked up to see Ghilya having jumped down off the log and clapped her hands together.

“Right, we're all good to go?” She asked no one in particular.

Thomas nodded, flinging droplets of sweat diluted off every edge of his face. His skin still bright red like a drunkard or someone who worked in frigid environments for too long. Clarke tried to raise his head but could only manage to get into a half-bowing position and extended his arm to give a thumbs up.

The next few hours proceeded to go by uneventfully. Nothing came at us, we didn’t go into hiding to avoid aerial patrols and we certainly didn’t hear that godsawful sound once again. At the same time none of us spoke to each other. I kept expecting something horrible to jump out at us. This in turn spawned a string of thoughts in regard to Ghilya’s evasiveness earlier. Had I known what she does about it would I be any different, would I be in the same position? Would I want to withhold as much information about something like that if even she thought so bad of it? Or would I be more forthcoming?

The sound of water trickling grew to a dull roar as we encountered a small waterfall, only a few metres in height. The water rushed out from the top of what looked like solid wall of lichen and moss-covered stone. It seemed to stretch for as far as the eye could see in both directions and it was at that point that I had begun to realise we had been slowly ascending the foot of the mountain. In fact we had been doing so for nearly an hour. Boulders and large rocks poked from out of the ground, and the mulch underfoot was more damp than it had been before. I looked up from the ground to see the dark grey mountains looming over us, an overcast cloud cell ominously circling the peaks of its craggy surface.

It proved challenging to find any purchase on the cliff face that wasn’t already damp or covered with moss and while the three of us struggled from one jagged edge to the next. Ghilya made us all look inadequate after launching herself in a series of acrobatic moves that got her to the top in a matter of seconds, she laughed giddily as she landed on the top and looked down on us.

“Hurry up, boys!” she teased.

Clark, who was below me, could be heard grumbling under his breath. Can’t say I disagree with his disapproval. After we had scaled the small rockface we resumed our trek following Ghilya. Our legs ached, well mine did at least. All around us, the once dense green vegetation had been steadily transforming into spaced out trees with dull muted colours. We followed Ghilya along the river uphill for another kilometre where she stood still in front of a fork in the river. She seemed to be confused and had a hand on her chin as though she was trying hard to remember some crucial detail. At first she took ten steps following one path, then backtracked and followed the other. Thomas stood still as he watched her disbelieving at her sudden disorientation. For a good long minute, I had thought she was lost and didn’t know which way to go, If this was the case I had already unslung my backpack, ready to reach down the back of my bag for the book on The Cauldron in case I needed to consult the pictures.

Thomas exhaled heavily as he checked his timepiece, then looking up to Ghilya as she paced back and forth trying to decide which part of the river to follow. He called her by name but she either didn’t hear or didn’t take notice and instead began softly mumbling to herself scratching her chin with her right hand. He called her out once more, this time more forceful, and she spun around but did not make eye contact.

My brother threw his hands up to prompt a response. “Well, Missy? Which way do we go, left or right? We don’t got a lot of time on our hands so don’t tell me you forgot which way to go.”

As if that was all that was needed to get her attention, Ghilya brought her head up slowly and let her arms drop to the side, her eyes didn’t seem to focus in on myself or my brother or the Senator, not really looking as much as staring blankly into space. They conveyed no emotion but I could see in them the subtle motions of gears turning as she tried to formulate something, some kind of solution to a problem unknown to us and only for her to decide.

“So, we have a decision to make,” She began cryptically.

Oh no, she better not say this is where her usefulness ends, I kinda like having someone who knows about this place around.

“As you can see behind me, the river forks off into two different directions and there are a more than a few ways through the mountains.” She continued. “But there are two passages I think that are more preferable for us to take.”

She was beginning to look worried, or was it concerned? In either case, Ghilya was hesitant to even lead us any further and wanted to pitch it to us for us to decide which direction to take. Did it even matter which way we took as long as it was quick, efficient, and preferably safe? At least that’s the option I would have taken.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Well, what are the differences between the two of them?” Clarke asked.

She nodded then pointed behind her. “If we take the left route it will lead us to a tunnel system that goes to the other side, it is quick and direct if you know your way around it. Which I do. The right passage on the other hand, that will take us over to the peak and we go down it. It is a little bit longer but…”

Thomas stepped forward all confident and machismo. “Sounds like it’s a no-brainer.” And he began following the left river fork before Ghilya placed a hand on his chest stopping him in his tracks.

“Wait! There is a reason why I am putting this out there. If we go through the tunnels we will have to sneak past a large nest of Iron Spiders.”

Time froze to a screeching halt, I could feel the colour and warmth leave my body leaving only a cold, pale corpse standing in my place. Hearing that word and having the dissatisfaction of knowing what they looked like was enough for everything around me to seem like I had engaged the neural processor’s ability to reduce time to a matter of microseconds instead. The idea of me being in a dark tunnel surrounded by, at a minimum of two feet long spiders with a rock-hard exoskeleton was more than I was ever going to be okay dealing with on this journey. My body began to move on its own and I immediately started towards the right river fork and leapt over to the other side of the small stream, following the water to its source up on the mountain.

“Fuck that!” I exclaimed.

Ghilya called out to me with a voice that was louder than any of us would have liked. “Wait, Michael!”

I turned around to face them with my hands up in a surrendering gesture.

“Uh-uh, you just made this decision way too easy. Now it’s a no-brainer that we are NOT going to a spider-infested tunnel. I would rather be eaten by a dragon than ever let one of those ugly fuckers near me!”

But Thomas rolled his eyes at me as if I were being childish, when he replied it was in the voice of a father trying to force his child to do something miniscule that the child was making a huge fuss over. “Oh man up will you, for fuck’s sake! We got guns and your limbs aren’t real so you won’t feel them if they crawl over you.”

“That just makes it worse.”

“Is he afraid of spiders?” Clarke said, addressing Thomas.

“Big arachnophobe, even bigger sook.” Thomas nodded.

“First of all,” I began with a matter-of-fact voice holding up a finger to emphasise my point. “Arachnophobe would imply I am afraid of all arachnids. I am only afraid of spiders, not of scorpions, scorpions are arachnids and scorpions are cool. They glow under a black light so they are perfect for nightclubs and raves and don’t look anywhere near as terrifying as a spider. Which I am afraid of. Secondly; You really want to go into a dark dank tunnel with no lights and possibly have those things surround you, web you up and drain you of your blood? Hard pass for me.”

I turned around once more; I could hear Thomas and Ghilya calling me back.

“Michael!” Ghilya called out. “If we go that way we will run into that creature!”

That stopped me in my tracks. When I spun around to face her, Clarke and Thomas were looking at each other exchanging confused glances before looking at Ghilya. I marched towards her, bridging the gap between us in a handful of seconds.

“What is she talking about, what creature?” Clarke asked.

I ignored him as I stared Ghilya down, she better not have been saying that as a means of trying to scare me into cooperation.

“You better be joking, that’s not funny.” I said.

Thomas glanced at us both with a confused expression. “What thing is she talking about?”

Ghilya sighed, still ignoring Thomas and Clarke’s inquiries. “That’s why I didn’t say anything earlier, that’s why I thought it was strange it was moving so far out of its usual territory. If we take the other passage, we might end up running into it.”

“HEY!” Thomas shouted. He snapped his fingers twice in front of our faces, evidently frustrated by being ignored. “What are you two on about? What creature are you talking about!?”

We both stared at each other for an uneasy second longer than we were comfortable with, our expressions cautious and wary. Ghilya knew more than I did, all I would contribute was nothing more than an unsubstantiated rumour at best.

She swallowed hard, steeled her expression for the uneasy conversation ahead and with a low voice that hid the fear she was experiencing, said. “There is a creature that resides up near here. Each of us Beastmen respect the other’s right to live, even humans. We all grew up and evolved on this world, sharing its air and resources. But there is one thing that most other Beastmen and elves will agree on… That the creature that lives up here is something completely and wholly unnatural. By all accounts, it should not exist simply for the fear and suffering it causes to those in its presence. Even the origins of its creation are steeped in myth and uncertainty with most scholars not coming up with a concrete answer to why it exists. How it exists, and what purpose it serves. Perhaps they simply are afraid of the answer or do not want to know the answer, I couldn’t blame them if that were the case.”

Clarke placed a hand on her shoulder for comfort, it was then that I noticed the stream of tears coming down her eyes. “Ghilya,” Clarke said softly. “What is waiting for us up there?”

Thomas held up a hand and addressed me. “Hang on, you knew about this?”

“Well, uh… I mean a little bit.”

“How much is a ‘little bit’?” He replied accusingly.

It was the look in his eyes that made me worry about any control I had over my bladder muscles that made me feel as though I had been caught out on a lie. That look in his eyes reached deep into my subconscious and pulled out the fear of punishment within, triggering old memories long past buried of my mother giving me the exact same look on several occasions in the past. He glared at me with those brown eyes of his until they were sharpened into finely carved blades that cut into my soul.

“A-all I heard was a s-shriek. T-that was it!” I said with a shaky voice. “I didn’t see anything, Ghilya didn’t even tell me what it was.”

Hopefully shifting the attention and parts of the blame onto her would buy me enough time to figure a way out of this. Then, just as I had hoped, Thomas’ accusatory dagger-piercing look was diverted towards our elven guide. Suddenly her calm, neutral expression switched to shock and surprise.

“What the hell is this thing?”

“It goes by many names. But it has the appearance of a man and a horse.” She blurted.

“You mean a Centaur?” I injected.

She shook her head. “No, its not a Centaur. It has the torso of a man fused with that of a horse.”

My eyes were partially closed in an unamused way, reinforced by my flat voice. “That sounds like a centaur.”

“It's not a centaur you idiot!” She snapped.

Clarke stifled a laugh that came out resembling a cough.

Thomas opted to glare at me with an amused expression. Perhaps I was wrong but the description she gave wasn’t making it easier on me to figure it out.

“Some of the origin myths about it said that a human and his steed would hit and run many elven tribes and other species in a genocidal quest for human supremacy a long time ago.” Ghilya began her explanation. “According to one such myth, this rider struck a caravan of villagers which had powerful mages among them, and after seeing the death and destruction this rider caused they had placed a curse on him to be forever bound to his steed and to haunt the area where he supposedly made camp. And has been actively patrolling and slaughtering indiscriminately ever since. Another supposed origin of the creature comes from our religious belief, which I tend to lean towards more is that it is the champion of Sil; our goddess of death. Because that is all it is. Death.”

She spoke softly but with carefully weighed and calculated words that were lightly seasoned with fear. It had made her sound as though speaking of such things freely and openly was a social taboo that she was breaking and wasn’t certain how to feel about it. Clarke casted a glance at myself and my brother before going back to Ghilya.

“I think I would rather take my chances with the spider infested tunnel.” Clarke said uncertainly.

“I’m not!”

Thomas shook his head, his hand came up to his head and pinched the bridge of his nose as he massaged the skin as if to ease the tension in his head. “Michael think about this logically. Time is not on our side and we don’t know how long it'll take us to climb over the mountain. On top of that, do you really, really want to contend with what she just called a ‘Champion of Death’?”

“Look, all I know is that it isn’t a spider so I am willing to take my chances.”

Thomas sighed heavily. A hint of defeat lingered in the air. The heaviness of his emotional state could be felt weighing on my own shoulders like a burden that had been passed around.

“Ghilya,” He asked. “Please tell me you know your way around the tip of the mountain?”

She nodded. “Of course.”

“How often have you encountered this… thing of death that you mentioned? In your travels?” Clarke asked Ghilya.

“None, I have taken the same path through its territory a hundred times and never saw it… at least not in person. Other’s have claimed to have seen it once and said it haunted their dreams for weeks. But I have heard the sounds it makes, you’ll know if it is nearby.”

Thomas looked up at me with a look of disbelief as if he were expressing to me nonverbally just how more effort I was unnecessarily placing on our journey. Not my fault I was afraid of spiders, I certainly did not want to go to a tunnel filled with them in the dark.

“Fine,” Thomas exasperated a bit louder than was necessary. “We’ll go over the bloody mountain because Michael is a fucking sook. Ghilya, please lead the way.”

My brother’s tempered frustration could be felt as I walked behind him. I deliberately manoeuvred myself behind him because I knew I was less likely to be scolded and listen to him whining about this if I was behind him than I would be at the front. The downside to this was that he left a trail of frustration lingering behind him like a cloud of emotional negativity being produced from a machine.

A short time later and dozens of metres higher all of the vegetation of the forest became more sparse which gave way to more moss and lichen-covered rocks jutting out from the ground. The ground beneath us was still a thick layer of padded mulch that crunched under each footstep. The steep climb up started through a crevasse between two large rocks on one of the flatter surfaces of the mountain. Ghilya led us through the gap and up the steep set of naturally occurring staircase. The high steps made me wonder how someone like Clarke was going to fare with this intensive hike. The path was carved in an ascending zig-zag pattern at first, followed by a lengthy trail that led eastward towards a plateau that flattened out to create a naturally occurring platform that overlooked the vast forest we travelled through and the faint outline of skyscrapers could be made just on the horizon.

With the mountain wall on our backs and an exposed view of the world in front of us, Thomas pointed out we should keep moving as soon as possible. During our steep ascent I performed another check behind us to see if anything was there. The air felt cold and I doubt it was because of the altitude. Clarke was the rear member of our group due to his slow speed, and while he checked for anything following us I still felt the need to do so with my own eyes, especially after hearing that creature. I had almost done a double take when my most recent check had shown Clarke was lagging by several metres, he was winded. Again!

I quickly called out to the others and we took the time to rest.

“Fuck, how much more of this is there?”

Thomas exclaimed. “How many breaks do you need?!”

Clarke was already hunched over, hands pressed against his knees and his face drenched with sweat. He looked up, panting heavily and locked eyes with Thomas and extended his left middle finger. “Piss off, I’m 64 years old!”

I shook my head in disbelief as my brother waved his hand dismissively at Clarke.

“When you get to my age,” Clarke resumed. “You won’t be running marathons either. Most politicians don’t even go further than the coffee machine!”

Ghilya had leaned herself against the rock wall and folded her arms as she watched the discordant humans bicker and argue amongst themselves. Probably imagining in her head how we, as a species were ever able to make it to such a dominant, technologically sophisticated power while hers remained in a hunter-gatherer state.

Not wanting to waste any time, I took full advantage of the downtime and took a sip from my canteen, wiping my forearm against my mouth of any loose bits of fluid. The sun burned into our faces as it descended closer to the horizon. The night sky was obscured by the towering mountains between us. From where we were resting, I could see the sprawling rainforest and serpentine river stretch out as far as the eye could see. Mentally I took the time to make a mental snapshot of the view and admire the unspoilt scenery laid out before my prosthetic eyes. With this much open space, it provided me the perfect opportunity to take full advantage of their maximum magnification capability and admire the view in high graphical quality.

I chuckled lightly as I observed what looked like some kind of deer drink from the river over three kilometres away with such acuity I thought it was closer to us than it really was. Just over the horizon laid a harvest gold cloud lingering lower than that of the natural clouds. A small red pop-up box appeared in response to my thoughts listing it as a smog cloud consisting of high traces of Carbon Dioxide and Methane with faint traces of Bromine.

No doubt the lingering evidence of my kind’s pollution made manifest to trap us within its noxious bubble, almost as if it were a metaphor for human society in general.

Clarke who was back up regained his stamina, he looked at Ghilya as if he was going to beg her to not push him any further than he was already pushed.

An hour later we were walking easier on the flattened surface of another levelled plateau resting innocently before the towering cragged peaks of the mountains. The shortest one to our left had a less steep incline to get to and more frequent flattened-out areas could be made from the view. I took a moment to admire the majestic peaks surrounding us and sneak a look at the gaping chasm formed between all three mountains. Seeing such titans of nature stand before as a testament to the countless millennia they have stood here for gave me a calming sense of insignificance that showed just how small I was compared to these and how they will remain long after I am gone.

I could hear the sounds of gravel crunching underfoot behind me. Our group had started to resume our hike and I sped to catch up with them.

This time, as we ascended up the slope I found my heart sinking deep within my chest, stopping short below my stomach and in my lower gut which stopped me dead in my tracks. While it was much cooler up here compared to the warm humidity down below in the rainforest, it had felt as if somebody had sapped all the heat energy out of the air around us and let all my extremities go numb. My body went cold while my heart rate went up, goosebumps pockmarked my pale skin and made my spine shiver uncontrollably as if somebody rattling it. The shriek bellowed, the creature's malevolent call echoed off the cliff faces nearby, bouncing off each surface and prolonging its existence to us. It had sounded both louder and clearer than before, making the urge to run and hide in fear all the more powerful than it was back in the forest. Even Thomas looked fearful but not know why.

Shit, that thing must be close by. How the hell did it know we were here?

I fought against the urge to go back and inspect the path we came through and see what the creature looked like and instead tried to keep Clarke and Thomas’s nerves calm. Ghilya took Thomas’s hands and held them firmly trying to get him to look her in the eye and focus, telling him to ignore the urge to flee in fright. My attempt with Clarke was the same, his eyes nervously darting about from one side to the other in search of a threat that was close by yet nowhere to be seen. His hands became clammy and shook violently like a child on their first sugar rush, I could tell that he wanted to flee from here and not worry about our mission but it was our goal that I had to remind him of.

“Try to remember why we are here, Clarke.” I began. “Ignore that sound as best you can.”

He didn’t seem to be paying any attention to me, thinking of no other alternatives I swiped my open palm across his face sending my palm on fire and he looked at me as though I had shat on the carpet.

“Wh-wha- huh!?”

“Snap out of it!”

Clarke took a moment to regain his composure then swallowed hard, his eyes slowly focusing on me. There was a moment of silence between us that seemed to stretch on for hours where I thought that he was going to either resume his panic attack and run or hit me in retaliation for hitting him. Air whistled out of his nose as he tried to take control of his breathing, after a few breaths he seemed to be composed enough to think more clearly.

With a voice that shook almost as much as his hands did, he said. “Y-yes! You’re right, I’m sorry.”

“We need to get moving if we want to avoid that thing,” Ghilya stated with a raised voice. “If it finds us here we are easy pickings for it.”

It seemed universally agreed upon and all four of us broke into a sprint following Ghilya. Shortly after we took off, the creature unleashed another damning howl that gave our bodies the much-needed boost in adrenaline to keep up. However, it made me wonder just how much more of a speed boost was given to Ghilya.

In five minutes, the angle of the surface began to flatten itself out to the next platuea. Ghilya stopped in her tracks, skidding along the gravel a little before ducking over to the nearest rock cover she could find.

“Get down!” She whispered loudly.

We complied.

Thomas crouched beside her while Clarke and I hid among a large rock that sat nearby. Behind cover I could hear what sounded like footsteps clopping down on the gravelly surface. Once more my heart sank at the possibility of what it was. Still, I kept myself hidden from my rocky cover, Thomas gripped his gun in both hands fiercely, whether he was ready to engage what was out there bravely or stupidly was something I couldn’t tell from the look in his eyes. The clip-clop sounds grew distant, I took a risk and peeked over my cover to see what it was.

And with what I saw, I truly wished I hadn’t looked.

It was more horrifying than anything ever imagined, not even Ghilya’s vague description could prepare us for the true horror of what it was. I looked towards her, she shook her head and gestured for me to remain hidden but I was morbidly entranced by the thing I saw.

True to her description, at least in terms of its silhouette form and how she boiled it down, it was nothing like the Centaur species that inhabited these lands, in fact I think I would have preferred them over this thing. One of the more startling things about it that would be quickly discovered in observing it was the total absence of skin in any sense of the word, massive red muscles with white sinew accentuated the body of what looked like a horse. Massive, powerful leg muscles in full anatomical display of the sheer power they were capable of producing thumped on the ground with enough force to break bone. But its head was far from the idyllic even serene equine appearance one would associate with it, fangs and small tusks protruded out from its exposed jaw and where its eye should have been was solid bone protruding through the layer of muscles. The creature turned its head slightly towards us but not directly at us and I could see the bulbous, bloodshot eye bulging out from the centre of its skull.

And despite the demonic appearance the creature possessed it was by far nowhere near as disturbing as the rest of it. Not by a long shot. At the centre of its back raised upright with a straight posture was that of a man fused to the abdominal muscles of the creature. Just like the lower half, it too was devoid of any skin or outer coverings save for the exposed musculature of what appeared to be a man with abnormally long arms with freakishly long digits that nearly dragged on the ground. Atop its head were two oily black horns that curved backwards before pointing straight up, it’s mouth, or what passed for one was adorned with long sharpened teeth hidden behind a stockade of sinewy flesh fused to the lower and upper jaws together, giving the appearance of a grille from an old knight’s helmet.

It scanned the area with glowing red eyes, giving off small grumblings that terrified me. Its lower half neighed and acted very similarly to that of an actual horse.

Thomas had peeked out from cover and his face widened. “What the fuck is that!?” He whispered, voice trembling.

“Guys,” Ghilya responded, her voice shaking with fear. “That… is the Nuckalavee.”