The smell of sin, oh how sweet it is. As I advanced forth in my new form my favorite smell grew stronger. Little chuckles slipped from my lips as I tried to contain my excitement, the smell in the air was almost palpable now. After a few minutes of stalking, I found a sign of my prey, the light of a small campfire. I slowly approached it until I was only close enough to annualize the camp. In a clearing sat four medium-sized tents and two people who sat by the fire.

They were dressed in shoddy tunics with pants that could only be compared to a well-used rag. I didn’t let their poor appearance fool me though, the smell of sin coming off of them could only be attained by killing, torturing, robbing, and raping tens of people. In other words, professionals. I could also see multiple black strands of curses wrapped around them, some stretched into the sky but most flew loose in the wind. Though each strand was too weak to affect the men, they symbolized every time they had wronged a person. The loose ends represented curses whose owners had passed on while the ones that reached to the sky are from people who still walk the earth.

My smile grew even wider as I listened to the beating hearts. The camp possessed nine, two by the fire, and six in the tents. But for some reason, the last one was positioned by a tree at the edge of the clearing. The beating sounded small and panicked. My smile quickly turned into a scowl as I turned to look, a little girl, around ten or twelve, sat at the base with her arms tied behind her back. She was unkempt and scuffed up with a ripped dirty dress and bruised swollen face. She appeared to be sleeping but her uneasy breathing and quick heart rate said otherwise.

My smile slowly returned after I began planning the men’s demise, the girl can wait a little bit longer I’m sure. I settled with an old classic, luring one of the lookouts with a baby’s wailing. I retreated slowly to a slightly thicker cluster of trees and prepared my voice. Obviously, these people wouldn’t care about a baby so I mentally reached out and added a slight pull, just enough to not alert him or his partner. Everything was ready so I opened my maw and let out a low wheezing cry.

POV shift——————————————————

“I hate the cold, always have and always will, I also hate dark forests.” Dave suddenly spat at me, “So pray tell me, Mark, why we are out here in this godforsaken place ”

I glared over the fire, he damn well knew why we are out here, but there was nothing else better to do so I decided to humor him.

“As I’ve said for the hundredth time, Dave, the little b*tch said that they were hiding out over here.”

“I know that,” he snapped, “but how do we know she is not lying, we have already searched for five days with nothing to show for it”

“I'm just as unhappy about it as you are so don’t get your panties in a twist.” I hissed, “And besides I’m not the person who calls the shots, go complain to someone else.”

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He was still obviously unhappy but he shut up. I could finally have some peace and quiet. Talking about quiet, I noticed that it had suddenly become deathly silent out here. The normal nocturnal animals were nowhere to be seen and the wind that was blowing seconds ago went still. Slightly unnerved by this new development I placed a hand on my sword beside me.

I glanced over at Dave to see if he had noticed anything but he was still sulking by the fire. After slowly scanning our perimeter I did not notice a thing out of place, it must be the forest getting to me. With a heavy sigh, I removed my hand from the hilt and slowly let the accumulated tension out of my body and stretched, but suddenly I heard something that made my veins ice over.

A clear raspy wailing traveled through the trees to my left, each cry was more drawn out and pitiful than the last. I shot a look at Dave but he was clearly oblivious.

“Hey, dude do you hear that?” I hesitantly asked.

“Yes, I hear that Mr. bigwig over there snoring like there’s no tomorrow,” he shot a quick glare at the largest tent, “I swear I don’t know how he became a head ranger.”

I quickly replied “No not that, the cries coming from the Western side of camp”

He lifted his head for a bit and listened closely, finally, he looked back at me with mock concern “Awww is Mrs. puss puss hearing things?”

I glared at him with all the hatred I could muster then stood up and equipped my sword. I swore to prove him a fool as I strolled across camp. I don’t know why I had the sudden urge to find the source, all I felt was the need to prove that bastard wrong.

At the edge of the tree line, the crying was more frequent. I stood there for a second thinking about if I wanted to do this. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore and rushed into the forest. I swore if I caught the little bastard making this god awful noise I would make them into a stew. As I came closer to the noise it got exponentially louder. After a few yards the crying got so loud it was starting to hurt, I did not stop to think about how a child could make a noise that loud. As I rushed forward and prepared to kill the brat I finally came within twenty paces of the source.

I suddenly paused when I noticed something strange, the crying sounded like a repeat. Every wail struck the same highs and lows, every hick was the same as the first. When I was struck with that realization the crying started to distort and change into something different, it almost sounded like a laugh was bleeding through the wails. I went to draw my sword when I noticed something peculiar, ahead was poking out from the side of a tall tree. It was large and covered in dark brown fur with a huge set of antlers.

It was just sitting there opening and closing its mouth. We stared at each other until it finally clicked that what I was staring at, it was a mill deer. I could recognize its combination of horns and antlers anywhere. Mill deer posed no threat to me as they mostly eat small critters and fish so I let my guard down. But as I drew closer I noticed some abnormalities, it had deep caverns where its eyes would normally be, in the deeps of the right cavern an eerie pale light glowed, and its teeth were not needle-like at all. In fact, they appeared almost shark-like. The mouth extended all the way back to the eyes and the lips curled up into what appeared to be a cruel smile.

My heart almost stopped when I realized that I was looking up at the head, that cant be possible. I slowly went to back away, I definitely don’t want to deal with whatever it was. But as if sensing my intentions it's mouth. suddenly stopped and snapped shut. I could only look on in horror as its skin started slumping off, and for the first time it stepped out from behind the tree.