#
With a thunderous crash, the elk collapsed, its final breath steaming in the frozen air. As Erik Lofgren exhaled, he lowered his rifle while an unnatural hush swallowed the clearing. No wind stirred, no raven cried. Through the silence, boots crunched on snow as the others approached.
Jonna Myrberg, their best tracker, knelt beside the beast, gloved fingers tracing its matted fur. "This isn’t right," she murmured. The elk loomed too large, its antlers curling like ancient roots. Something lingered in its glazed eyes—something knowing.
"Meat’s meat," Henrik grunted, shouldering his rifle. "Help me gut the damn thing before it freezes solid."
No one moved.
The wind returned, but wrong—low, whispering, carrying a sound beneath it. A sigh. A moan. A voice without words.
Jonna tensed. "We shouldn’t have done this."
"Don’t start," Erik muttered, gripping his knife tighter. "Drag it to camp. We’ll talk there."
The knife touched flesh.
The sky ignited.
Through the northern lights, a blood-red glow rippled, bathing the forest in a sickly crimson. Beneath the ice, something seemed to stir as the ground trembled, deep and hollow. The air thickened, heavy with the scent of iron.
"Erik," Jonna whispered, "something’s awake."
A branch snapped. Another.
Beyond the tree line, something moved.
It wasn’t the wind. It wasn’t an animal. It watched.
Slowly, impossibly, the elk’s ruined body twitched.
#
Through the splintered beams of the hunting lodge, the wind howled, rattling loose slats like bones knocking together. With frozen fingers barely gripping the knife, Erik carved another rune into the rotting wood. The symbols weren’t exactly Sámi—but they felt old, older than the trees, older than the thing pacing outside.
Jonna pressed her back against his. “It’s close,” she whispered, voice raw. “I feel it watching.”
Erik didn’t answer. The weight of unseen eyes pressed against the cabin, vast, patient. A shadow passed over the door—tall, limping, its outline wrong. The skin it wore had antlers, but the thing beneath moved differently.
The knife slipped in his grip. “This won’t hold.”
Jonna let out a humorless laugh. “I know.”
Outside, the creature exhaled, wind rushing through hollow bones. The runes flickered, their power thin.
The door exploded inward.
Jonna screamed as something yanked her into the dark, wrenching her from Erik’s grasp. He lunged, fingers grazing hers for an instant—then she was gone. Her cries cut off too fast, swallowed by the storm.
Erik staggered back, breath fogging the air. The thing stepped into the doorway, wearing the elk’s ruined hide, its head too still while something underneath shifted.
His knife trembled in his grip. This is it.
A whisper—not words, but understanding.
The runes. The guardian. The price.
Erik exhaled and turned the blade on himself.
Pain seared through his chest as he carved sigils into his flesh, each cut a surrender, a binding. As the last rune was complete, the wind died. The thing in the doorway shuddered, its form unraveling, accepting.
The forest went quiet.
Erik collapsed to his knees, blood soaking the frozen floor. His body remained, but his mind—his consciousness—did not. He felt the lodge, the trees, the endless taiga stretching beyond time. He had become part of it.
The thing wearing the elk’s skin faded into the shadows. The balance was restored.
But Erik remained. Watching. Waiting. Guarding. Forever.
#
Exciting news! My book, Cumberland Chronicles at Books2Read, is now available! If you enjoy the supernatural, horror, and the weird, I’d love for you to check it out. Even if it’s not your thing, a quick share would help me reach the right readers. Thank you for the support!
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