It came on the fourth night.
They had grown used to the quiet. Used to the crackle of the fire. To the slow routine of eating, resting, and walking nowhere.
But that night, the wind changed. It blew cold and sharp through the chapel ruins, hissing through the stones like a whisper meant for the dead.
The boy couldn't sleep.
Neither could the girl.
They sat across from one another, firelight flickering in their hollow faces. She toyed with a length of thread from her torn sleeve, and he held a sharpened stick a crude spear carved during the day, though he barely knew how to use it.
Then they heard it.
Footsteps.
Heavy. Deliberate.
Crunching leaves, slow and dragging.
The girl's eyes widened.
The boy stood.
The fire popped.
Then a figure appeared in the archway.
Wrapped in a black cloak. Mud-soaked. Hood hiding its face.
It said nothing.
It just stood there.
Watching.
Waiting.
The boy tightened his grip on the spear. The girl took a slow step toward him not behind, not beside but toward. Her body was trembling, but she placed herself just near enough that their shoulders almost touched.
Still, the figure did not move.
Then it spoke.
Its voice was low, guttural like old wood scraping stone.
"You shouldn't be here."
The boy didn't answer.
Neither did the girl.
The figure stepped forward, and moonlight caught the edge of something beneath its cloak — metal. Not a sword. No. Something twisted, jagged… forged for pain, not war.
The boy raised his spear, clumsy and shaking.
The figure stopped.
Then it let out a sound.
A rasping chuckle.
And slowly turned.
Not fleeing, just walking away. Back into the woods.
The fire crackled louder now. Like it, too, had been holding its breath.
They didn't move.
Not for minutes.
Then the girl whispered, barely audible: "That wasn't a man."
The boy turned to her.
She was crying.
Not sobbing, just silent tears tracing down her dirt-covered face. As if whatever that thing was… reminded her of something she'd buried.
He didn't know what to do.
But he reached for her hand.
And she didn't pull away.
By morning, the tracks were gone.
But the fear remained.
They packed their things, what little they had and left the chapel behind. The boy kept the spear. The girl never let go of his hand the entire morning.
Their bond, once hollow and mechanical, now had a thread of truth woven through it fragile, but real.
Neither knew what that creature had been.
Neither wanted to.
But they understood something now:
The war hadn't taken everything.
Something else still walked these woods.
And it was hunting what remained.