The ten-by-ten-foot observation cabin was a freezing, rusted cage suspended eighty feet above a biological nightmare.
The fierce February wind shrieked continuously through the jagged teeth of the shattered windowpanes, carrying a fine, biting dusting of dry snow across the warped wooden floorboards. The enclosed space tasted heavily of oxidized iron, ancient, frozen owl pellets, and the sharp, coppery tang of the Arboreal Stalker blood drying into a thick crust on Ren's bare knuckles. Outside the broken windows, the pale, razor-thin sliver of a crescent moon offered absolutely zero illumination, entirely swallowed by the sprawling, pitch-black ocean of the mutated timberland.
Directly beneath the steel structure, the nocturnal hunting cycle was in absolute, chaotic overdrive.
