That night Jessica lay in bed staring at the ceiling. In the corner of her bedroom were all the things she'd need for travelling: thick but light winter clothes, fur-lined leather boots, and a backpack with several days' worth of pemmican, a hand musket, and a bandolier. Although she lived right by the palisade straddling the edge of the her world, never in her life had leaving the village crossed her mind. The presence of the unknown kept her wide awake.

She tried to make herself sleep but that didn't work. She tried counting sheep. That didn't work either.

Eventually the idea of missing out from being too drowsy to move took center stage, but she chased that idea off with idle thoughts about trivial things. There was a single candle left in her cupboard and she didn't want to drain the butcher's tallow supply so she hit the hay by sunset. This was just one of the many ways she took up as little space as possible. If you asked her why she did this, then this was the least she could do for her community.

Another part of her believed she had a hidden destiny, a purpose, but even in her head these things were so distant they were never in sight. Now, they were just over the wall. She rolled over to look at the window and caught a glance of the moon peeking out from behind a grey cloud.

...

Blood and entrails all over the snow.

The village square was filled with demons tearing apart the corpses of everyone she knew. The Holy Tree, withered to nothingness. All around her the village was falling apart, burning down, sinking into nothingness, succumbing to entropy.

Soon she became conscious of something warm and slimy pulsating in her mouth, dribbling down her chin. An awful metallic taste filled her maw. Carter's face stared back at her with unseeing eyes. Father Isaac. An endless procession of names and cold, lifeless faces vanished from her memory one by one, devoured by cold, darkness and the unknown.

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...

Jessica woke up in a cold sweat, panting and wheezing. Reality flooded back in as the nightmare faded away.

She rubbed her eyes. It was incredibly dark in her room. She'd never been awake at this hour. She thought of leaving the bed but it was too cold - no, it wasn't. For some reason it was perfectly fine, even though it had been winter for as long as she could remember. That was odd. So she got out of bed anyways.

Then she looked at the mirror. An abomination stared back. She gagged. She wheezed. She choked. She nearly threw up.

Her hair. It was blue, not sky blue, but a shade of blue that was just too saturated to be real. Her eyes veered up a little and there were wolves' ears sprouting from the top of her head. Outside the wind blew harder. Moonlight suffused thinning clouds, shining through her window. In shock she fell on her hindquarters, only for agonizing pins and needles to rush through her spine like a roaring fire. But she didn't feel it in her back, she felt it in-

"...A tail!"

Jessica staggered around her cabin, groaning and grunting in pain as her organs rearranged themselves. Bone and muscle and sinew squeezed through gaps and around each other. She thrashed herself against the walls, knocking over furniture, smashing into pieces as they fell. She got down, picked splinters off the ground, and frantically tried to use them to scrape the fur off her body. Blue fur scattered over the floor. Yet no matter how much came off the skin grew back, and the fur with it. There was no use. She wrapped her bent and twisted fingers around the wooden doorknob.

As she got off the porch she looked back over her shoulder. Warm candlelight glowed through the window. Carter's silhouette appeared.

With a teary, frightened eyes she took off as fast as she could on all fours.

...

By noon the whole village had heard the news. The demons had taken Jessica Wright. Carter had not spoken for hours.

It was a fact of life the world was getting worse with each day. Even knowing this the villagers maintained a sense of dogged optimism. They viewed the mere act of living as an act of rebellion against the inevitable. They had not much to be proud of, but nobody could deny there was a sense of pride to being the last people one earth, holding off entropy with nothing but their own blood, sweat and tears. Jessica's disappearance had punctured their sense of pride.

The first thing they did was check the state of the palisade. To their utter chagrin, the entire length of the palisade was in optimal condition. The logs were strong, firmly rooted in the earth, and tightly packed together. It was impenetrable.

The second thing they did was ask the lookouts. All of them had been at their posts all night. Unfortunately not a single one of them saw anything. The demon had managed to breach the palisade without leaving any footprints behind. By how well it had covered its tracks, it may as well have turned itself invisible and flown in through the window.

For years, the palisade and the Holy Tree had protected them from the wilderness. Last night both had failed.