The moon hung low over the horizon, casting silver light across the undulating forest canopy. Its glow filtered through the leaves, illuminating the forest floor in patches of soft radiance and deep shadow. I moved with careful precision, each footstep calculated, every movement deliberate. Months of survival had honed my senses to a razor’s edge. I could feel the pulse of the earth beneath me, the subtle vibration of distant prey, the presence of predators I could not yet see.
The forest tonight was different. There was a tension in the air, subtle but undeniable, a restless energy that made the hairs on my arms stand on end. It was not fear, not exactly, but awareness. The kind that whispered of secrets hidden beneath roots and rocks, of eyes watching from the shadows, of things that mo
