They'd been following the river for maybe two hours when the arguments started getting worse, exhaustion mixing with fear until every word carried an edge.
"We should stay near the water," the older man who'd pointed them toward the river kept insisting. "Settlements are always built near water, basic civilization requirements."
"But we're exposed here," the wedding woman countered, her voice hoarse from crying earlier. "Anything can see us from the trees, we should go back into the forest where there's cover."
"Go back to where those things were hunting us?" One of the office workers, a woman who'd barely spoken until now, laughed bitterly. "That's the stupidest thing I've heard since we got here."
The remaining teenager, who'd been silent since watching his friend get crushed by the witch, suddenly spoke up. "Maybe we should split up, cover more ground, find help faster."
The businessman stopped walking so abruptly that two people nearly ran into him, and when he turned around his face was red with barely controlled rage. "Split up? You stupid little shit, you want to split up? Your friend already got himself killed trying to be clever, and now you want us to spread out so those things can pick us off easier?"
"I was just trying to—"
The crack of the businessman's palm against the teenager's face echoed across the water, sending birds fleeing from nearby trees. The kid stumbled backward, hand going to his reddening cheek, tears starting to form from shock more than pain.
"Trying to get us killed with your idiotic—"
Rou moved before he'd consciously decided to, his hand closing around the businessman's wrist as he pulled back for another hit.
The adrenaline must have been pumping harder than he realized because when the businessman tried to yank his arm free, Rou's grip held firm.
"Let go of me." The businessman's voice dropped dangerously low, but there was something else there now, confusion maybe, as he pulled harder against Rou's hold without success.
'Just adrenaline,' Rou thought, though some part of him wondered why his hand wasn't shaking like it usually did during confrontations. "Don't hit the kid."
"He needs to learn when to shut his mouth or he'll get us all killed." The businessman jerked his arm again, harder this time, his face darkening when it still didn't move. "I said let go."
"I don't like confrontation," Rou said, which was true, had always been true, but he found himself not releasing the man's wrist anyway. "But you don't get to beat up children just because you're scared."
"We're all scared!" The businessman's free hand came up, maybe to push Rou, maybe to hit him too, but he stopped when Rou shifted his grip slightly, making the man wince from the pressure. "Fuck, what do you do, construction? Let go!"
The chittering sound returned, cutting through their conflict instantly, freezing everyone in place as primitive fear overrode everything else. It came from upstream, then answered from downstream, then from the forest on both sides.
They were surrounded.
"Run," someone whispered, but run where when the sounds came from every direction?
The first creature burst from the tree line before anyone could decide, that same dog-like thing but smaller than the one the witch had killed, its sideways-opening mouth already gaping as it charged toward the group.
Then another from the opposite side, and another from upstream, coordinated like pack hunters who'd been maneuvering them into position the whole time they'd been arguing.
The group shattered instantly, survival instinct overriding any attempt at staying together. The wedding woman ran downstream, screaming as she splashed through the shallows.
The older man went the opposite direction. The office workers scattered into the trees despite having just argued against going into the forest.
Rou released the businessman's wrist and shoved him hard toward the river just as one of the creatures lunged where he'd been standing. The businessman stumbled into the water, gasping at the cold, while Rou turned to see the teenager frozen in terror as a creature approached him with that horrible sideways grin spreading wider.
He ran toward the kid, his legs pumping with desperate energy, grabbing a river rock as he moved. He hurled it at the creature's head, the stone bouncing off its skull with enough force to make it flinch and turn toward him instead.
"Run!" Rou shouted at the teenager, who finally bolted toward the trees while the creature focused on this new target.
The thing charged at Rou, faster than something that size should move. He dove sideways, hitting the rocky riverbank hard enough to scrape his palms bloody. The creature's jaws snapped shut where he'd been, close enough that he smelled rot and old blood.
Another creature came at him from the side. Rou scrambled backward on his hands and knees, grabbing another rock, throwing it, missing completely. The creature lunged and he rolled desperately, its teeth catching his jacket and tearing through the fabric like paper.
Screaming erupted from every direction now, his scattered group being hunted through forest and river alike. He could hear the businessman shouting something downstream, the wedding woman's screams growing fainter as she ran, someone else making sounds that weren't quite screams anymore, just pain noises that meant a creature had caught them.
The creature attacking Rou circled him, seemingly enjoying his desperate scrambling, playing with its food. Then something crashed through the undergrowth behind it, another creature joining the hunt. Rou realized he was about to be torn apart by two of them.
He ran.
Not toward where others had fled, not downstream toward the hypothetical settlement, but straight into the forest because it was the only direction without screaming, the only path where creatures weren't already feeding.
Branches tore at his face and arms as he crashed through undergrowth, the chittering sounds following close behind. His foot caught on a root and he went down hard, rolling through leaf litter and mud, somehow getting back up and continuing to run even as his ankle screamed in protest.
Behind him, the creatures were gaining, their bulk crashing through the forest with terrifying efficiency. His torn jacket caught on thorns and he left it behind, running in just his t-shirt through a medieval forest, phone still somehow in his pocket bouncing uselessly against his leg.
The ground suddenly sloped sharply downward and he couldn't stop his momentum, half-running half-falling down the incline, trees whipping past in a blur. He slammed into a birch trunk hard enough to knock the wind from him but pushed off and kept going because the chittering was still right behind him.
Deeper into the forest, farther from the river, farther from any hope of finding the others if any of them even survived. The businessman's shouts had stopped. The wedding woman's screams had cut off abruptly. Everything was just his breathing and the sounds of pursuit.
His ankle gave out, sending him tumbling through bushes that scratched his arms bloody, and when he tried to stand the pain was enough to make him gasp. The chittering grew closer, the creatures knowing their prey was injured now, taking their time.
He limped forward, using trees for support, moving deeper into shadows where the canopy grew so thick that barely any light reached the forest floor. The air felt heavy here, a feeling so weird that it made his skin prickle with warnings.
He stumbled into a small clearing where the trees formed almost a perfect circle, their trunks massive and old, their roots creating natural barriers. In the center, barely visible through the gloom, something glimmered.
Water. A pool of it, perfectly still, perfectly clear despite the darkness around it, as if it generated its own faint light.
The chittering stopped at the edge of the clearing, the creatures pacing along the tree line but not entering, making frustrated sounds but refusing to cross into the circle of the trees.
Rou stood there panting, blood running down his arms from dozens of scratches, his ankle throbbing with each heartbeat, watching the creatures pace and snarl but not approach. Whatever this place was, they feared it.
'Sacred ground,' his mind supplied, though he didn't know where that thought came from. 'They won't come here.'
He was trapped, surrounded by monsters in a clearing they wouldn't enter, with only a pool of strange water for company. But at least he was alive, which was more than he could say for certain about anyone else.
The water glimmered, inviting, and despite everything logical in his mind screaming warnings, Rou found himself moving toward it because his throat was dry from running and fear.
What did it matter if the water was safe when monsters waited just beyond the trees to tear him apart the moment he tried to leave?