The Devil In The Trees
956 Words
Prologue
The forest didn’t whisper tonight. It watched. The air was heavy still, damp, and clinging like invisible webs. Even the usual chirp of crickets or distant rustle of prey had vanished, swallowed by the silence. The moon, half-obscured by clouds, cast long crooked shadows between the trees. The deeper the three wolves moved into unclaimed territory, the darker it became ,as if the trees themselves leaned in to keep secrets.
“I don’t like this,” Kye muttered, pulling his jacket tighter as he glanced over his shoulder.
“Yeah, well, no one asked,” Toma said ahead of him, his stride confident. “Shortcut or not, I’m not trekking the long way just ‘cause your balls shrivel in the dark.”
“Seriously, Toma,” Jaren said, a few steps behind. “This place… it feels wrong.”
Toma barked a laugh. “It’s just woods, you paranoid pups. What, scared of branches?”
“No,” Kye said sharply. “I’m scared of what lives past them.”
That made the other two pause.
“What are you talking about?” Jaren asked, his tone wary now.
Kye stopped walking. The leaves around them shivered even though there was no wind.
“This is rogue land,” Kye said. “Unclaimed. Unmarked. There are stories… warnings. My father told me never to cross into this forest. Said it’s cursed.”
“Oh for f—” Toma groaned, throwing his head back. “Not this s**t again. I swear, Kye, if I had a bone for every story you believed, I would be Alpha by now.”
But Kye’s voice dropped low, steady now. “It’s not just any rogue territory. This is where he is said to roam.”
Toma turned around. “Who?”
“The Hell Alpha.”
A beat of silence.
“You mean that myth?” Jaren said, half-laughing, half-scared.
“Not a myth.” Kye’s eyes were wide now, catching slivers of moonlight. “They say he was born from hellfire. That he’s not a real wolf not anymore. His pack was destroyed by the moon goddess herself. Now he lives to hunt what’s left of them. Of us.”
Toma snorted. “So, what, a demon wolf’s gonna jump out and eat us?”
“People have gone missing out here. Whole search parties never came back.”
“You need therapy,” Toma said, turning back around. “Or better weed. Maybe both.”
Kye stopped walking. “I’m serious. They say he has horns when he shifts. That his eyes glow red and that he doesn’t kill like a normal wolf. He toys with you. Hunts you like sport.”
A branch cracked behind them. Not a small twig. Not a leaf. This was a deliberate sound. Heavy. Sharp. Like weight being shifted.
They all froze.
Jaren turned. “Did you—”
“Yeah,” Kye whispered. “I heard it.”
Another sound. Closer. A low thump, like something landing heavily on the earth.
Toma scoffed, but there was less conviction now. “It’s probably a raccoon or—”
Then came the growl. It didn’t come from beside them. It didn’t even come from ahead. It came from everywhere a sound so deep and ancient it seemed to echo inside their bones.
Jaren took a step back. “That’s not a raccoon.”
“No s**t,” Toma muttered. “Probably a rogue trying to scare us.”
But then— A howl.
Unlike anything they have ever heard. It wasn’t a call. It was a warning. A declaration. Predator. Alpha. Death.
Even Toma’s cocky smirk vanished. “Okay. Time to go.”
They turned to leave ,then a blur of red flickered between the trees.
“Did you see that?” Kye whispered.
Toma shook his head. “No. I didn’t see …look, it’s probably—”
A branch snapped. Close. Too close.
“Okay, yeah,” Jaren muttered, voice trembling, “f**k the shortcut.”
Toma turned to run..
Something moved. Fast. A blur behind him. A low huff of breath.
He froze, panic in his throat. “Guys—guys, do you see th—”
His sentence ended in a sickening crunch as something yanked him backward into the dark. One second, Toma was standing there. The next, he was gone dragged into the underbrush like a rag doll.
A scream tore through the night. High. Broken. Cut short with a wet, gurgling snap. Jaren and Kye stood frozen. Then a low snarl, closer now, so loud it rattled the air.
Blood sprayed across a tree trunk ahead of them Toma’s boot landed at their feet, torn clean off, still warm.
“RUN!” Kye shouted.
They shifted mid-step, bones cracking, fur erupting along their spines. In seconds, two wolves tore through the trees ,one silver-grey, one ash brown vaulting over roots, pushing every muscle to escape.
Behind them, branches exploded. Something huge moved, faster than it should have . Smashing through brush. Hunting. Playing. Jaren glanced back once and saw glowing red eyes.
Then came another scream not his own. Jaren was gone. Kye didn’t stop. Didn’t turn around. Didn’t breathe.
He kept running. Trees blurred past. Blood pounded in his ears. He didn’t stop even as his paws bled from the stones, even when he heard it the thing walking behind him again, slowly this time. As if it had already fed.
He leapt a ravine, collapsed on the other side, shifted back to human form mid-roll and slammed into the ground, gasping.
Silence again. No footsteps. No howling. But he knew it had stopped because it let him go.
A gift.
A message.
- Writer
