Aiden's Point of View
The night wraps around us like a thick cloak, and the woods press in with a silence that hums in my ears. I stand beside Drake and Mark at the edge of the forest, the scorched symbol at our feet, still faintly warm in the center. The hairs on the back of my neck are standing on end. The air feels wrong. Charged. Watched.
And then I feel it.
A shift, subtle, like the wind pausing mid breath.
Mark stiffens. “Did you feel that?”
“Yeah,” I murmur, my eyes already scanning the treeline.
Something's here.
A flicker between the trees.
Then I see it.
Two burning red eyes pierce through the darkness from deep within the forest. They don’t blink. They don’t shift. They just stare. Fixed directly on us like twin embers floating in the black.
And then it moves.
Slowly,
