CHAPTER 1
I always thought life would start later for me after high school, after turning eighteen, after getting far away from the chipped-paint farmhouse where Uncle Pete and I lived. But looking back now, everything truly began the morning we walked into the woods together. The morning everything ended.
My name is Josh Campbell, and until that day, I was just the kind of guy people forget five minutes after meeting. Average height, average grades, average dreams except for the one I kept tucked inside my chest like a smoldering coal. I wanted more. More than the farm. More than feeding chickens and fixing fences. More than the quiet life my uncle believed was enough
Uncle Pete was in his early fifties, though sometimes he moved like a man much older, all stiff joints and heavy sighs from years of work. He wasn’t my real uncle—just my mom’s cousin—but he was the only family I had left. My mom died when I was ten, and he’d taken me in without hesitation. He gave me a home, food, and a life that was steady, if small.
But I used to tell him the same thing every chance I got:
“Pete, life is bigger than this farm. You should actually live a little.”
He’d just laugh, rubbing his gray-flecked beard. “Kid, you say that like the world is waitin’ with open arms.” Then he’d lean on the porch railing, staring out at the fields as if trying to see past them. “Maybe you’ll prove me wrong someday.”
Most days were the same mornings spent tending the animals, afternoons repairing whatever needed fixing, evenings cooking something simple. I didn’t hate it. I just wanted… more. And I thought I had time. I thought life would expand slowly, like the sunrise stretching over the horizon.
But life doesn’t stretch. It snaps.
The day everything changed started like any other. The air was crisp, cool enough that you could see your breath when you spoke. Uncle Pete thumped on my door before sunrise.
“Up, Josh. We’re goin’ huntin’. Haven’t brought back venison in weeks.”
I groaned, because hunting mornings always came too early, but I got up anyway. Pete handed me a mug of steaming coffee, the kind so bitter it woke you faster than the caffeine. He smiled at me over the rim of his own cup. “World’s not gonna wait for you,son” he said.
“Good,” I muttered. “Means I can catch up.”
We set off just after dawn. The woods behind the farm stretched for miles, deep and old. I’d been exploring them since I was a kid. I thought I knew every deer path, every crooked tree, every hidden stream.
I didn’t know anything.
We walked in silence, the kind that only exists between people who don’t need to fill the space. Pete scanned the underbrush with the calm focus only a lifetime of practice gives. I followed a few paces behind, clutching my rifle more for comfort than necessity.
About an hour in, the woods grew strangely quiet.
If you’ve ever spent real time in the wild, you know how wrong that is. The forest is never silent. Birds chirp. Squirrels scamper. Even the wind makes a sound. But suddenly… nothing. Just a dead, heavy stillness pressing against my ears.
I stopped walking. “Pete?”
He slowed too, frowning. “Yeah. I feel it.”
A shape darted across the corner of my vision black, fast, too fast to be any animal I recognized.
“Did you see that?” I whispered.
Before he could answer, the creature lunged out of the brush.
I didn’t get a good look at it then. It moved like a streak of darkness, all claws and speed and a sound that wasn’t quite a growl, wasn’t quite a scream. Something in between. Something wrong.
Pete shoved me hard, sending me sprawling into the dirt. The creature swiped where I had been standing. Its claws tore a tree trunk instead, leaving deep gouges like it was slicing through soft butter.
“Get up, Josh! Run!”
I scrambled to my feet, adrenaline flooding me so fast my hands shook. We took off, crashing through the underbrush. Branches slapped my face, roots caught at my boots. Pete wheezed behind me, but he didn’t slow. The creature chased us, its movements a blur, sometimes to our left, sometimes behind, sometimes above in the trees. I could hear it breathing fast, sharp, unnatural.
Then Pete gasped a sound I’d never heard from him and stumbled.
“Pete!” I grabbed his arm, but he pushed me forward.
“Go!” he barked. “Don’t look back!”
But I did. I saw the blood soaking through his shirt, dark and spreading. I don’t remember firing my rifle, but I must have, because a gunshot echoed through the trees. The creature hissed angry, almost offended and vanished into the shadows.
We didn’t stop running until the farmhouse was in sight. Only then did Pete collapse on the ground.
“Let me call someone,” I said, panic rising in my throat.
“No.” He shook his head weakly. “Ain’t got time for that.”
I pressed my hands to his wound, but the blood kept seeping through my fingers. He caught my wrist with surprising strength.
“Listen to me, Josh.”
“Pete, don’t”
“Shut up and listen.” He coughed, a wet, painful sound. “You always said life was bigger than this farm. Bigger than me. You were right.” His voice trembled. “You gotta go. Find whatever the hell is out there. Don’t stay small.”
“Don’t talk like this,” I said, tears blurring my vision. “You’re gonna be okay.”
He smiled faintly. “You’ll do great things, kid. Bigger things than I ever did.”
His hand slipped from mine.
And just like that… he was gone.
The world felt colder, emptier, harsher. I sat there for minutes or hours, I don’t know holding him and begging him to wake up.
But he didn’t.
I buried him that night under the big oak tree beside the house. The moon was full, lighting the fresh mound of dirt like a spotlight on my grief. The shovel felt heavy in my hands. Heavier than any weight I’d carried in my life.
When it was done, I stood there trembling, staring at the grave, and something inside me shifted.
“I’ll find it,” I whispered. “Whatever killed you. I’ll find it.”
The night wind answered with a long, low howl from the woods. And for the first time in my life, I wasn’t afraid of how big the world was.
I was ready to chase it.
And ready to hunt.
