“Stupid frog” Aziya cursed as she wadded out of the lake “Why do I have a brother like this”

“Hey Aziya why are you being stupid?” Brald laughed at Aziya as she pulled herself up from the lake.

“Great thanks a lot Brald now I’m muddy” Aziya glared at her brother as she wiped the mud off her clothes. “Don’t do that again. Please”

Brald snickered as Aziya turned around to pick up her shoe from the mud and wash it off in the lake before she put it back on her foot. “We should go to the market and get something to eat before we head back,” She said, drying off as much of her wet clothes as possible.

“Yeah your right, Donuts? Or Hamburger?” Brald said while having a look of constipation which Aziya hoped that was the face he made was his thinking face.

“Hamburgers definitely” Aziya smirked as she bumped the shoulder of her dear brother. “Shortcut through the forest?”

“Bet,” Brald smirked as he pushed Aziya back into the lake “Last one there pays!”

“Hey!” Aziya sputtered, hauling herself from the lake “Brald! Go to hell!”

Aziya ran through the trail that the two of them would always take, under the log, through the berry bushes across the river…. Aziya stops as she hears a scream. Rushing towards the direction she sees a little boy face to face with a monster their mother used to tell them about in the stories, the Wendigo. It snarled at Brald as it inched closer toward him baring its fangs and elongated bony fingers.

“RUN!” Aziya screamed as the Wendigo launched itself towards the child

*Crunch*

Aziya’s knees gave out as Wendigo took another bite out of the corpse of the little boy, the glazed eyes of the wendigo staring at her. She muffled her breathing with her shirt as she slowly backed away from the wendigo. The beast gnawed on the bones of the child before turning its head towards her, she stopped moving, her gaze landed on the slit like nostrils, opening and closing above the massive mouth of the Wendigo. At that very moment she had a realisation that the creatures smell was far superior to its sight, its glazed eyes didn’t even look at her, its bony hand was searching for her as it took deep breaths around its surroundings as it raked the forest floor in her direction, searching for her.

“Shhh” Aziya almost screamed as a figure propped itself beside her and whispered into her ear “That thing will hear us unless we’re this quiet”

“Who are you?!” Aziya whispered back “How did you even get here?”

“Don’t worry about the details” The figure waved his hand to shrug her questions off “They call me ‘Ophelia’ I got hurt while trying to hunt this thing”

She raised the cloak that was covering her body, and Aziya gasped as she watched the bloody scratch that started at the base of the woman’s waist going up to her neck.

“Hurts like a bitch, but I don’t have a choice to stop as of right now,” Ophelia nodded her head to the wendigo “Stay near me if you don’t want to die, my ability will stop it from being able to smell or see us but it will still be able to hear us, My job was to kill this thing, and now I’ve become the hunted.”

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“Why were you told to hunt this thing?” Aziya said “Isn’t the capital at least a two day trip by car?”

“Well I failed my last mission because I refused to complete it,” Ophelia shrugged “As an assassin nothing is more important than killing the target, no matter what you need to do”

“Sounds like a rough job” Aziya said watching the movements of the wendigo as it started to move away “Why is it still here?”

Ophelia said nothing as turning her head towards the other direction and pointed towards a tree, Aziya felt the life drain from her body as she saw piles and small piles of human bones surrounding the tree, and on the branches the bodies of victims lay limp as the short branches pierced their chests.

“We are definitely screwed” Aziya gulped and turned back to watch the wendigo cough a human skull onto the ground and return to the tree. The place they sat was the center of the Wendigo nest.

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“Wake up” still groggy Aziya rubbed her eyes and turned to her companion “Your turn, it left an hour ago”

“Alright I’ll let you in on anything unusual if I see it” She said suddenly awake again after realising that she wasn’t home with her brother but in the very center of a wendigo nest, the knife and gun that Ophelia had lent her was nested gently within her lap, she tied her hair back and started her shift of the watch. Every move within the dark forest made her jump and she glanced at the orb sitting between her and Ophelia, how could something so small conceal both of their bodies she sighed and practiced swinging the knife, it felt almost natural in her hand as if the knife was part of her body. Suddenly a crack of a tree branch stopped her movements. She changed her position to a crouch and watched as a boy around the same age as her walking around the tree that the wendigo kept its victims. She wanted to scream and tell him to run, she wanted to grab him and pull him into the barrier, but she stopped as she listened to what the boy was saying.

“Interesting, Bassa this looks like a wendigo nest, I swear if you just lured me into a trap I will strangle you.” The boy said picking up a skull “Judging from the way the everything is position I assume it went out hunting, I can don’t think I need to kill it, Although a wendigo would have been an interesting to-”

The boy was staring at her, jaw open and looked at Ophelia. The boy could see her. She was hit with four emotions one after another first was relief that someone other Ophelia could keep her company, the second was fear that the boy was going to die very quickly now that he had made a ruckus within the nest of a wendigo, the third was panic as she tried to signal the boy to come in to the barrier, and the last was anger, that she had to share the tiny space with another person.

“Did you guys actually survive the Wendigo?” the boy looked at her and laughed and waved off her panicked gestures telling him to join them, “Impressive”

“It killed four people over the past day,” she whispered hurriedly “get in so we don’t die!!!”

“A wendigo shouldn’t be any problems for the lady next to you,” He nodded at Ophelia “She has more enough of capabilities to do so”

“I would if I didn’t have this bloody wound” Ophelia said getting up, which caused Aziya to jump who thought Ophelia was already deep in slumber, Ophelia turned showing Hunter the wound that she received, “The wendigo got me by surprise the first time”

“And I would believe you if this was the wound that a Wendigo actually leaves when it attacks” The boy said grinning as he lowered himself to their level to get a better look at the wound “So that just leaves the question of how did you manage to find one?”

“Find what?” Aziya suddenly was confused, wasn’t the wound Ophelia got from the wendigo? If not what could have done that for her?

“The Rake, A higher subclass of wendigo’s that is commonly nicknamed the Rake for their capabilities to attack from a distance and still deal a significant amount of damage even when their claws scratch you” the boy’s grin transformed into a smirk “An ameteur thought the rake was easy compared to assassinating someone, what a joke”

“Call me a joke one more time and I will show you the organs that your body holds as you slowly die,” Ophelia was suddenly at Hunters neck, she hissed at him “How do you even know about that?”

“Enough with the tough act lady, it's going to be here any minute now, and your barrier is completely useless against it now, since it’s gone through evolution” the boy smirk was suddenly gone

“How do you know?” Aziya asked

“Well for one it just landed on a tree” the boy said “The exact tree that we’re holding this conversation under”

Aziya looked up and saw it did look like the Wendigo had gone through a change, its limbs now lengthened and it’s bony structure looked thinner than usual its arms now had a leathery flap that held it to its leg.

“And we call this one Camazotz,” the boy said in awe of the creature that looked down at them “Or translated Night Hunter, or Death night”

“Fuck!” Ophelia cursed as the figure swooped down at them, Aziya screamed as it lowered itself to the ground

“And now you can die” the boy raised his hand and waved it, Aziya looked at the boy as if the boy was delusional, suddenly something flew through the air and landed in Aziyas hands, she looked down and saw the head of the Camazotz in her hand, she quickly let it go and looked at the boy who started laughing and Ophelia who sat down and sighed in relief.

“Names Hunter, now let's get both of you out of here before we meet another one of those shall we?” Hunter raised his hand to show them the direction they needed to walk.

“Sounds better than almost dying another time” Ophelia said getting up “Let's get the hell out of here, with whoever the fuck this guy is”