The forest had nearly finished swallowing the town.

  Streets once straight and neat, now had roots bursting through, cracking the pavement like jagged veins. Pines and spruce had risen, tall and solemn, their branches dusted with early snow. Houses sagged under the weight of decades, their walls bowing inward, windows blackened and blind. A mountain loomed in the distance — stark, alone, its peak bare and white against a bruised sky. From anywhere in the ruin, you could glimpse it: the last watchman, silent, unblinking.

  Kira came here every year, when autumn bled into winter. She never planned the journey. Her steps simply carried her, as if the land itself pulled her back to this hollow. Always to the same house, where pine needles lay thick across the floor and a chimney jutted from the roof like a broken tooth.

  She paused outside the threshold. Her feet could barely feel the welcome mat that had been forgotten so long ago. She glanced to her left and right. Once, these had been tidy yards, their fences painted and trimmed. Now, birch and spruce sprouted through sagging porches, roots curling through old doorways. A deer moved quietly among the ruins, grazing on what had once been carefully kept lawns and neatly arranged flower beds. Now overgrown with crabgrass and dandelions. The deer lifted its head briefly, ears flicking at her presence, then lowered them again to the overgrowth, unafraid.

  Inside, the air was damp with rot. Wallpaper peeled in long strips like molted skin. Meltwater dripped in steady ticks from the ceiling. She crossed to the far wall and sat beneath cracked picture frames, her scythe resting beside her like a rusted memory. Across from her, a half broken door frame with notches.

  Etched lines marked a child’s growth, year after year, until there was a larger gash destroying what was left of the door frame.

  Her eyes blurred, the house came alive around her. As if memory became reality.

  Floorboards gleamed with polish. Candlelight flickered from the kitchen. Neighbors laughed beyond open windows; the scent of bread curled through the air. Through the doorway, she glimpsed children chasing a ball down the lane, their shouts bright and careless. A woman in a red shawl hung laundry between birches that were then only saplings.

  Kira pressed her claws into her palms until blood began to pool and slowly drip down to the rotting floor. She wanted to believe that the memory was real. For a moment, she nearly did.

  Then the bread soured into smoke. The laughter fractured into screaming. The shawl darkened and blew away. She blinked — and the house was again ruined.

  Silence pressed heavy on her ears. She bowed her head to the rotten wood and whispered, “Why do you keep calling me back?”

  No answer came. Only the wind, rattling through broken glass, carrying a giggle toward the mountain.

  She rose to leave. That was when she heard it: voices.

  Not memory. Not vision. Real.

  Her ears twitched beneath her hood. She melted back into the house’s shadow, gaze narrowing on the street below.

  Three figures picked their way down the overgrown street. A man with a tool-packed rucksack. A woman wrapped in patched furs. And a boy, no older than ten, clutching a wooden bear carved from driftwood. Their boots cracked through frost as they moved, scanning the ruins with wary eyes.

  They hadn’t noticed her. Their eyes fell instead on a tall Cedar, its branches sagging from years of harsh winters but still intact. Decades ago, this tree stood at the center of a lush park. Now all that remains is the cracked

  Kira watched from the second story of a decaying house. She gently sniffed the air as the family set their packs down. The man gathered some kindling before kneeling down at the base of the gazebo. He gently coaxed sparks into a narrow flame; while the woman spread a blanket fondly. Kira's predatory gaze watched the woman's movements, memorizing her movements, the way she spread the worn blanket out, the flannel pattern almost faded beyond recognition. Her eyes looking and finding several weaknesses to take the woman down. Kira’s gaze shifted to the man; his movements were tired, worn smooth by repetition. The boy though — restless. Kira's ears followed his movements. The boy gathered more sticks around the tree though his eyes darted at everything: the hollow windows, the roots prying through stone, the mountain crouched on the horizon. The man gave a quick nod to the boy.

  “Make sure I can see you at all times, understand son?” The boy looked at his father with a gleeful smile.

  Before the sticks could even hit the ground, the boy was off, circling the gazebo with quick steps, before darting off into the ruins. His laughter rang out thin and bright in the empty air.

  Kira’s claws flexed against the wood at her side. Her eyes immediately darted to him. That laughter scraped something raw inside her chest.

  She followed silently, slipping between ruined houses, keeping him in sight. He came to an old stairwell half-hidden beneath vines. A cellar door, cracked but still hinged, yawned open into darkness. Curiosity tugged harder than caution.

  The boy climbed down. Clutching his wooden bear as his mitten scraping against stone. He called softly to himself as he vanished below.

  Then — a sound. A groan of wood. A sudden slam. The cellar door had fallen shut, swollen by years of rot and snow.

  From the cedar tree, the man’s head jerked up. The woman froze. “Where’s—” she began. Then the muffled thump of fists from below. A child’s panicked cry.

  The man rushed, heaving at the door, but the wood held stubbornly, its hinges rusted fast. The boy’s voice rose sharp with fear.

  Kira’s ears twitched again. She felt her muscles coil. Every instinct told her to stay hidden — to let strangers live and die without her hand in it. But the sound of the boy’s cries struck her like the echo of something long-buried.

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  For the first time in years, she stepped from shadow. The pale sun illuminating half her face allowing one of her canines to glint faintly.

  The pines muffled her steps. The snow drank her sound. By the time the man and woman realized someone stood behind them, she was already there. A silent shape, closer than comfort, as if she had slipped through the world itself.

  The man’s hand flew to the axe on his back. The woman staggered to shield the cellar door. Their eyes widened — not in recognition, but in the primal fear of prey sensing the hunter.

  Kira’s head tilted, ears twitching beneath her hood. Old habits die hard; her body remembered how to stalk, how to close distance, how to move like hunger given form. But when she spoke, her voice was low, calm, and soft — a whisper dancing across frost.

  “Easy,” she murmured, as though calming frightened animals. “I won’t harm you.” Her amber eyes flicked to the cellar door. A child’s fists still thudded from within, muffled cries bleeding through the rotted wood. “He’s trapped.”

  The woman’s lips parted, confusion cutting through fear. “You—”

  “Step back,” Kira said gently, raising her empty hand, her claws hidden by cloth. She let her voice tremble with a practiced kindness, the kind she had once worn as a mask when blending among villages long ago. “Please. Let me help.”

  The man hesitated. He looked at her weapon — the long, curved blade strapped across her back, the glint of steel at odds with her tone. His knuckles whitened on the axe, but he moved aside all the same, the sound of his son’s sobs weighing heavier than suspicion.

  Kira knelt by the cellar door. She brushed snow from its swollen boards with slow, delicate motions, as if afraid to frighten the wood itself. Her claws pressed against the rusted hinge.

  Inside, the boy cried, “I can’t breathe!” His fists struck harder, faster, splinters raining into the dark. Kira lowered her voice further, leaning close to the wood. “Hush, little one. You’re not alone. I’ll get you out.”

  To the parents, her words were soothing. To herself, they carried an echo — a reminder of when she had spoken the same to prey, just before the end.

  Kira ran her fingers along the swollen planks, testing them. As if sending bursts of energy through the wood. Planks groaned under her touch, brittle with rot, yet wed tight in the rusted hinges. The man crouched beside her, fumbling with a pry bar, but the metal slipped, the door unmoving. The boy’s cries inside grew sharper, more frantic.

  “Too tight,” the man muttered, breath clouding in the cold. “We need—”

  Kira raised a hand to silence him. “Step back.”

  Her voice was quiet, but the weight of it brooked no argument.

  The parents obeyed reluctantly, retreating at a pace. Their fear thickened the air, but desperation dulled it — they wanted their son free more than they wanted her gone.

  Kira pressed her palm flat against the wood. For a moment, she let herself remember the old rhythm: the lean of her shoulder, the coiling of her muscles, the way power wanted to surge through her bones. A habit she thought she had buried.

  The cellar door creaked — then snapped.

  Not with the sound of wood splintering, but of hinges torn clean from stone. She lifted it as though it weighed nothing, casting it aside into the snow with a muffled thud.

  The man stared. His mouth worked soundlessly, his hand frozen on the shaft of his axe. The woman took an involuntary step back in shock and fear. But the boy didn’t see any of that. He scrambled up from the dark, cheeks streaked with tears, clutching his carved bear. His eyes found Kira — not his parents, not the ruined cellar door, but soft golden eyes of his hero.

  She knelt as he stumbled into the snow, resting one hand lightly on his shoulder. “Breathe,” she whispered. “The dark can’t have you.”

  The boy’s sobs eased slowly into shuddering breaths. He pressed himself against her cloak, trembling, his wooden bear trapped between them.

  Behind her, his parents exchanged a look — relief warred with unease. Gratitude did not erase what they had just witnessed: a stranger appearing like a phantom, tearing through rust and rot with impossible ease. They had questions but decided to save them for a less stressful time and place.

  Kira let the boy cling to her a moment longer before gently easing him back toward his mother. She kept her voice soft, her face still. The mask held, but behind it, her ears twitched at every sound — the quickened heartbeats, the parents’ shallow breaths, the crunch of snow beneath shifting feet.

  Old habits die hard. She could smell their fear as plainly as the marks on the ruined wall she had left behind.

  But the boy… the boy looked at her as though she were a savior.

  The boy clutched her cloak a moment longer before his mother gently pulled him back into her arms. She stroked his hair, murmuring thanks, though her eyes never left Kira.

  The man was slower to speak. His hand still hovered near his axe, though he lowered it at last. His voice came rough.

  “You pulled him out… thank you. But who are you? Why are you here?”

  Kira’s ears twitched beneath her hood. The truth hovered on her tongue like broken glass. Instead, she shaped her words with care. “No one of importance. Just a wanderer. The forest… draws me back.”

  The woman frowned, tightening her grip on her son. “Back? To this place?” Her eyes flicked to the ruined houses. “There’s nothing here but rot and ghosts.”

  Kira almost laughed at that, but her smile was thin. “Ghosts have their uses. They keep the living company.”

  The man’s gaze sharpened. He didn’t like riddles. “We’re heading east,” he said, more firmly, as if to redirect. “There’s a safe haven near the sea. At least, that’s what the traders say. Ships, walls, food. We can’t survive another winter inland.”

  The woman’s eyes softened, pleading in a way her husband’s pride would not allow. “We could use another pair of hands. Someone like you…” She faltered, glancing at the cellar door Kira had wrenched free. “…might be the difference between making it or not.”

  Kira’s mask nearly cracked. Her first instinct was refusal. Traveling with strangers meant questions, suspicion, the weight of eyes she could not bear. Solitude was safer — for them as much as for her.

  “I walk alone,” she said flatly, pulling her cloak tighter.

  The boy, still tucked against his mother, looked up at her. His cheeks were streaked, his small hand gripping the wooden bear so tightly the edges dug into his skin.

  “But you don’t have to,” he whispered.

  Kira’s chest tightened. Old words, old echoes. She turned her face away, ears twitching as if the forest itself had accused her.

  The man shifted uncomfortably, as though he expected her to vanish into the snow. The woman’s eyes dimmed with disappointment.

  But the boy stepped forward, tugging at her sleeve. “Please. Come with us. You saved me. If you go, what if I get stuck again? Or… or worse?” His voice cracked, earnest and afraid.

  Kira lowered her gaze to him. The wooden bear trembled in his grip. In his eyes, she saw no fear of her — only the simple, impossible faith of a child.

  Her lips parted, a soft exhale curling in the cold air. “…The sea, you said?”

  The boy nodded quickly.

  She closed her eyes, listening to the mountain’s silence in the distance. When she opened them again, the mask was back in place. She gave the boy the smallest of nods.

  “Very well. But only until you reach your haven. After that… my path is my own.”

  The boy smiled, small but radiant. His mother’s shoulders loosened in relief. Even the father, still wary, let out a long breath.

  For the first time in years, Kira did not leave the town alone.