I slammed my bedroom door and threw myself onto the bed, my pulse still hammering. My stew downstairs was untouched, but I didn’t care. My stomach was a knot of anger and confusion. I pressed my hands to my face, trying to breathe.
Silence pressed heavy around me. Too heavy.
And then—
Cold.
Not the draft of an open window. Not the kind of chill a blanket could fix. This was the kind of cold that crawled under my skin, sank into my marrow.
The air shifted. Shadows peeled off the walls like tar, stretching, reaching. My lungs stuttered.
Then it was there.
A hunter.
It didn’t step into the room—it bled into it, like smoke oozing from a c***k in reality. Its hollow eyes locked on me, its jaw widening in an impossible stretch. Cloth fluttered around its boneless frame, its body a husk s
