Boom.

An enormous blast lit up the rapidly darkening sky. The tremor jostled the trees in the forest, causing birds to stir and fly away. Forest creatures of the ground cowered in fear, retreating to their dens to ride out the disturbance. The tranquil waters of a nearby pond rippled; the fish that called it home swam erratically as their watery abode fell under assault by what to them appeared to be a world-ending catastrophe.

Deep within a grand cavern of limestone—filled with stalactites and stalagmites, yawning crevasses and waterfalls, and babbling brooks and brackish tide pools—resided a creature, a beast, whose name would spark fear in the hearts of anyone who heard it. A creature whose killing sprees would span hundreds of kilometres in just hours—an impossible feat for any normal being. She was not normal. This creature was a predator, bred to hunt, kill, and consume. Everything else came second. It was called Mylena, and nobody was left alive to tell what its name meant. The creature sat on a stumpy rock with a book in her hand, flipping through the pages silently.

Then, the shockwave hit. A shudder sent loose rocks tumbling into the cave below. Snapping the book cover shut, she exhaled through her nose. A rumbling growl reverberated against the walls of the cave. The vixen stood up, reaching her full height of nearly seven feet. Stretching her limber arms and legs and waving her tail behind her slowly hypnotically, she yawned; her fang-filled mouth open to the world, her tongue splayed out, dripping vile saliva tinged red with blood. She stalked toward the opening of the cave, perching there on one foot. She sniffed the air. Her eyes glowed with a sinister yellow hue as she surveyed the night.

In the far distance, flashes of light illuminated the horizon—about one every three seconds. The creature knew that with every blast, more men fell victim to the greed of No Man’s Land. She also knew that with every fallen soldier, her hunger grew until it couldn’t be contained anymore. A growl escaped her lips.

No. I mustn’t. The moment I am discovered is the moment I die.

Her mind raced. So many possibilities, just a stone’s throw away. She could go in, claim her prize, and retreat with the humans none the wiser. Or, she could go in, make herself known, spread fear…

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

She drooled like a wolf who’d captured a frail hare in its jaws. She, the wolf, would pounce on and crush the many thousands of little hares in their trenches over there. All she needed to do was remain undetected. Hoisting herself out of the mouth of the cave, the creature raced away into the night; her claws digging into the soft topsoil. Her eyes shone with a glare full of fury—their orange irises glinting as if they contained smouldering coals within them.

The landscape gradually morphed during the beast’s frantic flight, changing from a warm, Earthly wood, to a miserable, fractured moonscape. The trees from which the creature gleaned its fruits lay splintered on the cratered ground—splayed out like matchsticks.

Sickening, these humans. Their disregard of my esteemed wood, it’s….

Her thoughts couldn’t continue, as the scent of the battlefield ahead clouded her mind. The instincts which she’d grown to so wholly suppress came flooding back like the tides of the ocean: forceful, violent, absolute, eternal. A fire seemed to light within her core; the bonfire grew with each meter she covered.

Then, the creature broke through the threshold between peace and war, making its emergence on the battlefield. She came to stop on a promontory that overlooked what must have been a field in a past life. Now, it was home to the worst conditions the world had ever known. Trenches spanned the field’s width—from north to south, east to west, and everywhere in between. Great swathes of land remained untouched by the forces that warred below them; pounded to bits and drowned in the mud.

This is… quite unprecedented. The creature growled again.

Her stomach begged her for something to fill it, whether it be one of her favourite bush-berries, or something much more insidious. The beast was inclined to ignore it, but her instincts… they were far too powerful to ignore. She shivered—not because of the cold, but because of something much different. Something deep within her.

A force that couldn’t be quelled.

Then, she leapt from the zenith on which she perched, descending its steep, craggy side.

There it was. The Great War. Her Great War. Let the battle begin.