Anore sprinted through the forest, his paws tearing into the earth beneath him. Branches and thorny vines lashed across his fur-covered face and chest, but he barely noticed the sting. All he could think about was getting back to the camp, to the others. They had to know what he had seen, what was coming for them. His heart hammered with dread, each beat propelling him forward, faster and faster.
He was so consumed by fear that he didn’t see the drop ahead until it was too late. With a gasp, he fell forward, the ground disappearing beneath him. He landed hard on his left foot, the impact sending a sharp, searing pain up his leg. His ankle twisted, a grinding pain rolling up his calf and into his knee. It felt broken or, at the very least, badly sprained. But he didn’t stop. Gritting his teeth, he pushed the pain aside, driven by the raw need to warn his people. Adrenaline surged through his veins, numbing his injury just enough for him to stumble forward, his limp growing heavier with every step.
When he finally burst into the camp, his breaths came in shallow, ragged gasps. The rows of tents were eerily quiet, a stillness that seemed to echo his fear. He staggered past them, ignoring the unsettling silence, and threw himself into the command tent where Fintor waited. Fintor, a towering lycanthrope, was an imposing figure among the Canin-Tye'ro. Standing well over nine feet, he loomed over even the tallest of their kind, his silvered fur marking him as a leader, a protector.
“Fintor!” Anore gasped, leaning on his uninjured leg. He didn’t wait for permission to speak, didn’t think to catch his breath. His voice tumbled out in a rush, driven by urgency. “There’s been an attack—the southern tribe… they’re gone. Flames took everything… nothing but ashes now. It was the Kiev'arians. There’s no mistaking Dragonfire. You need to send word to Amantsagroul. We… we need to prepare.”
As his words echoed into silence, Anore noticed something strange. Fintor wasn’t responding. He was just… staring. Anore looked up into his leader’s face, his heart sinking as he took in the hollow emptiness in the lycanthrope’s eyes. It was as if the spark of life had been drained from him. A chill settled over Anore, pressing down on him with a suffocating weight. The tent was silent, too silent, and he realized with a cold clarity that he couldn’t hear a single sound in the camp. No voices, no movement—only the faint crackling of a torch flickering against the fabric walls.
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With trembling hands, Anore reached for a torch and lifted it to Fintor’s face. What he saw made his blood run cold. Fintor’s skin had tightened over his bones, his once-proud fur stripped away, leaving him frozen in an expression of pure terror. His eyes, hollow and lifeless, stared into nothingness. Anore stumbled back, his injured leg giving way beneath him, and he fell against one of the guards—a young Canin-Tye'ro he thought was named Meyr. But as soon as he touched the guard, Meyr’s body crumbled, disintegrating into a fine white dust that clung to Anore’s fur like a ghastly shroud.
The entire camp was dead, frozen in their final moments. Each Canin-Tye'ro stood locked in place, their expressions twisted in terror, their bodies petrified into withered husks. Horror clawed at Anore’s heart as he backed away, his breaths coming faster, shallower, bordering on panic. Without thinking, he turned and fled from the tent, stumbling through the rows of silent, lifeless figures, his mind spinning.
He hadn’t made it far when he collided with something immense, something that seemed to swallow the very air around it. He recoiled, looking up in confusion and terror. The sky was black, the moon and stars gone, hidden by a darkness so deep it felt alive, a pulsing void that swallowed all light. The stillness was suffocating, pressing down on him, wrapping him in an unnatural chill.
Desperately, Anore reached out, his fingers brushing against the cold emptiness before him. His paw met only void, a cold so intense it felt like it was draining his warmth, his very life. And then, the decay began. It started at his fingertips—a sharp, burning pain that quickly spread up his arm, relentless, consuming. He looked down, horrified, as his skin withered, his fur fell away in clumps, and his muscles shrank, aging decades in seconds.
As the decay reached his shoulder, his breath hitched, his heart pounding in his chest, slower with each beat. And then, out of the void, something moved. A crimson eye, vast and unblinking, opened in the darkness, its dark iris drawing in the last remnants of light. It was taller than he was, a malevolent gaze that seemed to pierce through him, indifferent and cruel, filled with a hunger that chilled him to his core. The emptiness in its stare mirrored the hollow terror he had seen in Fintor’s lifeless eyes, an unrelenting darkness that knew neither mercy nor end.
As his lungs tightened, his breath fading, Anore’s vision began to blur, a final, desperate thought slipping from his cracked lips in a barely audible whisper. “Saura’vix…”
And then, like the rest of his kin, Anore’s body froze, his form locked in those last moments of horror, forever petrified. His lifeless figure joined the silent camp, standing frozen in fear, a testament to the consuming darkness that had drained the life from them all, leaving nothing but empty, silent shells in its wake.