Two men trudged slowly through the woods in the early morning. Stumbling over roots and small rocks, their breaths in rasps.

“Huff, Huff…” One of the men, all hooded up, gasped for air as he sweat bullets.

His companion, heavy cloak wrapped tightly around him, spun around. “Man, stop huffing around!” he growled, keeping his voice low yet sharp. “You’ll bring in the monsters!”

The first man leaned against a nearby tree, panting. “Shit… huff… How long have we been here?” He wiped the sweat from his brow, his hands shaking.

“I don’t know. Days?”

“The fuck you mean you don’t know?!”

He stopped walking and turned to face his partner, his face twisted in annoyance. “What do you want me to say, huh? We're lost! We got our asses kicked by kids, lost our base, got lost on our way out, and you’re treating it as if it was all my fault!”

The hooded man, still catching his breath, clicked his tongue and kicked a stone. “Sheesh, I was just asking…”

“Yeah, well, stop asking stupid questions and keep moving!” He turned back and continued walking. “We’re not getting anywhere with you whining every five minutes. Let’s go, we might find an exit if we keep heading in a straight line.”

The two continued their walk. The silence between them was unyielding, interrupted only by the crunch of their footsteps, the chirping of birds, and the occasional creak of the trees.

One of the hooded men scanned the ground, as they had been for hours. A brief flicker of something dark caught his attention, and his stomach twisted.

Another one.

It was a body. It lay slumped against a tree, a massive hole where its chest should’ve been. Flies buzzed loudly over the open wound. Neither of them spoke about it as they walked past it.

It was the third one today. They couldn’t help but keep count.

As the two continued their walk, the hooded man couldn’t hold it in anymore. “T-That was Georg back there, wasn’t it?”

“Shut it.” His companion kept his voice low.

The hooded man couldn’t stop glancing back at the body they had just passed. He tried his best to stay silent, but the words escaped his mouth anyway.

“What in the world, man? Why are we in this mess?” he muttered. “The bodies… every single one… They either got holes in their chests or—” he swallowed hard, as if not believing the words he was about to say. “Their heads are nowhere to be seen…”

The cloaked man didn’t respond, his steps quickening as though he could outrun the conversation.

“Come on! You know you’ve seen it. The way they died, it’s not normal! What kind of monster could—?”

“I said shut it!” The cloaked man spun around, face pale with fear. “Don’t talk about it. Don’t even think about it.”

The hooded man blinked, realizing just how panicked they both were. “Y-Yeah… yeah, sorry.” He lowered his head, trying to calm down the frantic pounding in his chest.

Deep down, they knew that whatever caused their teammates their demise wasn’t any ordinary monster nor animal.

They didn’t dare imagine what it could be. The less space that thought occupied their mind, the better. And right now, the only thing keeping them moving was the fragile belief that if they just kept walking, they’d find a way out.

After their base had burned down, the two had barely managed to escape through a hidden tunnel. The kids—those damn kids—and the villagers had taken out their whole operation. Their boss had been dragged out into the open, captured like an animal.

After that though, they were lost in the woods.

They at first looked around for members of their bandit group, maybe one of them would know the way around. But, as they ventured farther from the base, they kept finding more and more dead bodies of people from the group. They slowly realized they were the only living members of the group in the forest.

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They hadn’t slept in days. The hooded man swore he heard footsteps every night when they tried to rest, something creeping just out of sight. But whenever he checked, there was nothing. Or at least, nothing he could see. Even his companion was starting to call him crazy.

Being lost in a forest filled with the carcasses of their co-workers, keeping their heads straight was becoming impossible.

The early morning light began to peek through the branches above, casting the forest in a dark blue tint. The cold continued to harass their skin, but they pressed on. Each snapping twig made their body tense up.

They told themselves they were still walking in a straight line. But with no way to tell for sure, it was all guesswork. Neither of them had Talents for navigation, and the forest had long since swallowed any sense of direction they had left.

The only thing they could do was move, no matter how tired they were.

After a few minutes of walking, the hooded man stopped in his tracks as his ears picked up a familiar sound.

“H-Hey, did you hear that?” he whispered the question to the cloaked man.

His companion didn’t even look back as he responded, “You’re hearing things again, man.”

“I swear, I’m not!” The hooded man growled. “It’s those footsteps again! T-They’re close too—!!”

“Man, stop it already!” The cloaked man slapped the hooded man’s forehead with his hand. “You’ve been at this for days. It’s just your damn nerves! Be quiet for a second, will you?!”

The hooded man clamped his mouth shut, swallowing hard. Was it really just his imagination? Was he really losing his mind? He couldn't even tell anymore.

With awkward silence, they walked for another few minutes before the hooded man couldn't contain it anymore. He needed to let his steam off, and what better way to do that than to blame others for this whole mess?

“This… This is all because of those brats!” he muttered, glaring at the dirt underneath his feet.

The cloaked man sighed, rolling his eyes. “Here we go…”

The hooded man’s muttering grew louder. “Those stupid kids… if they hadn’t shown up, we’d be back at the base right now, drinking, laughing, enjoying the steak—”

“We were the ones who brought them here, y’know?”

The hooded man ignored his companion’s comment as his voice pitched higher, his fists clenched at his sides. “If they had just stayed quiet and let us sell them off, none of this would happen! But nooo, they had to play hero!”

The cloaked man trudged on, casting the occasional glance at him but wisely keeping quiet. This rant was like clockwork now, but it wasn’t as intense as it was right now. The paranoia and fear were starting to boil over, the hooded man needed a way to vent them out. Who else to vent them out to but the skies?

His voice cracked as he threw his arms up, shouting at the sky. “Those kids think they’re so tough, huh?! Well, I swear, the second I lay my hands on them, I’ll—I'll—”

“You’ll what?” A voice, raspy and taunting, rang out from behind them.

The hooded man froze mid-gesture, one fist still raised toward the clouds. The cloaked man turned slowly, eyes wide with terror as they both realized that the footsteps weren’t just in his imagination.

Standing just a few paces away was a figure, draped in a heavy cloak, a white-gray mask obscuring their face.

The hooded man’s fist slowly lowered, his voice catching in his throat. “W-Who are—”

“I’ve been looking for you two,” the figure interrupted smoothly, not bothering to let him finish. “You know how busy I was for the past few days? Had to scour this place every morning just to make sure I got every single one of you.”

The hooded man exchanged a glance with his companion, the cloaked man. Slowly, his hand drifted toward the hilt of his short sword. His companion followed suit, both of them inching toward a fight they knew was coming.

The figure placed a hand on its hip. “Just when I thought I did get them all,” they continued, voice almost cheerful, despite its raspiness. “You go and make all that noise. How thoughtful of ya’.”

“L-Look… sir?” The cloaked man spoke up, trying his best to suppress the tremble in his voice. “I-I’m not sure what you’re talking about, but… we’re both hunters from around here, but it seems we’re lost…”

The figure’s masked face tilted ever so slightly. “Oh, not only are you guys bandits, you’re liars too?”

The moment those words dropped, both men reacted on instinct, yanking their blades free out of their leather scabbards.

But they were too slow.

Before the hooded man even had time to register what happened, the figure vanished from his line of sight. In a blink, countless dead leaves were blown by a sudden gust, and the figure was standing right in front of the cloaked man.

“Wha—?!” The cloaked man barely had time to gasp in surprise before a steel spear, that had appeared out of thin air, pierced through his chest.

There was no time to scream. No time to even breathe.

The cloaked man’s body slumped to the ground, lifeless. The hooded man could only watch in horror as the figure casually withdrew the spear, the blade dripping with blood.

He stumbled backward, falling to his knees, and his sword dropped. “W-W-W-What the fuck—?!” His voice cracked, his throat dry as sand. “W-W-Wait, please! P-Please, don’t kill me! I-I’ve got money! Lots of it! I can pay you! We—we have everything you might want! Just don’t—don’t—” His words were tumbling over each other, desperate and frantic.

The figure lifted a hand to their masked face, rubbing their forehead and shaking their head slowly. “Why is it, that every damn bandit I run into thinks they can bribe me with stolen goods?”

The spear, still dripping with blood, lowered until its tip pressed gently against the hooded man’s throat. He froze, his breath coming out ragged.

“A-AAAAAAAAAAAGGHHHH—!!!”

With a quick swing, the scream was cut off. The last thing the hooded man saw was his own headless body as he floated above it.

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image [https://i.imgur.com/RdC5Gde.png]