My head was spinning.

No… no it was the entire world. Everything is a blur.

Dizzying lights and jarring sounds filled me as I tried to stand.

Then I was yanked back down to the ground, my fog clearing as I got a good look at the person beside me.

Noah Hunt.

Noah…. Hunt. My stalker. The boy that had been my living nightmare since freshman year.

“What the fuck are you doing here you motherfucker??” I shouted as I tried to get up again.

Instead, I fell to the ground again, yanked down hard by his weight and as my vision cleared up more I saw the reason why.

We were handcuffed together. The metal was bound so tightly against my wrist that I saw scratches and drops of blood against it as I tried to wake Noah up.

Flashes of memory sprang into my mind. I remembered going to a party. Gemma Angelson, her parents had a rental property near the lake.

I had gone to try and score a few packs of marijuana from a friend, and snuck out so that my parents wouldn’t find me.

But it was hard to say for sure how long ago that was.

I tried again to wake Noah, but he wasn’t breathing and I began to fear the worst. Was he… dead? In the dim light of the canopy I could see what looked like deep gashes across his chest and face.

Something had attacked him.

Instantly I was in defense mode as I scooted closer to his cold body and looked about the woods closely and cautiously.

The forest was curiously silent, and it unsettled me.

I took a moment to gather myself and tried again to stand. Noah weighed about 220 so the job wasn’t easy.

“Help! Help!! Please someone!” I shouted at the top of my lungs.

It was eerily quiet, as if the entire forest was hiding from whatever had attacked Noah.

Dozens of questions filled my hand as I dragged his corpse to a tree. Had he lured me here? Was I a willing participant? And perhaps most important of all, what had hunted us and tracked us and killed Noah?

I needed to move and get to shelter if I wanted to gain any answers, so I used what little strength I had and pulled myself up to a hunched over position, my right side tugging downward to carry Noah.

Gemma’s cabin can’t be far, I told myself. I tried to spot the sun amid the treetops to get a sense of direction, wishing I had my phone with me. The only thing of any use was Noah’s backpack and it was on the other side of the meadow, it might have had a satellite phone in it, I thought as I began to crawl toward it.

It wasn’t long before I heard the most unsettling noise come from the woods and I froze in place.

I’ve never been fond of the forest. When I was little; we lived close to a small patch of trees and my friends loved to go and play there but not me. I was probably the straightest arrow you could find and I was worried that the woods would swallow me whole if I stepped foot in them.

At night as I fell asleep as a child the only thing I ever found remotely comforting about the forest was the ambient noises of crickets or the rustling of leaves. A calmness that descends over the trees as everything goes to sleep and it felt like nothing bad could ever happen to me thanks to this sense of ease that blanketed me.

There wasn’t any type of calmness found here, instead the forest was eerily quiet to the point that it made me wonder if there was even a living thing nearby. And then the noise of the beast. I can’t describe it properly.

I’ve never been good at identifying sounds, but it certainly didn’t sound like any animal I was familiar with. Maybe it was a bear or a large carnivore coming back to check on its fresh kill? If so, I suddenly had even more reason to cross the meadow and try to get out of here.

Again I tugged at Noah’s corpse and crawled across the grassy clearing, stopping every few feet to catch my breath. This wasn’t exactly the perfect time for me to realize I wasn’t in good shape and Noah had to be at least two hundred and twenty pounds if not more. I was starting to realize that if this became a fight of flight scenario, running wouldn’t be a good option.

Pushing myself up again, I dragged us to as close to the backpack as possible and yanked it toward me.

I think I said a prayer and then I unzipped the pack to see what he had brought along for the trip. Instead of seeing anything useful, it made my heart drop to my stomach.

There were different hunting knives, at least six of them all looking like they were meant to skin game animals along with rope, twist ties and other things clearly designed to keep me from running away. Duct tape for my mouth, drugs to keep me sedated. But nothing that could help me in my current predicament.

I kept digging, trying to not make a sound as the howling in the woods got louder. Was it a pack of wolves? Was I about to be their next meal now that Noah was beginning to decay?

I froze in shock as I saw strange silver coins near the bottom of his bag along with a journal that was opened to a page filled with some kind of symbols that I didn’t recognize. Was this like a code? And if so, for what?

I reached into the bag to pull out the journal, and just as I did I heard a harsh rush of air overhead and I dropped to the ground, freezing in place.

I felt my chest beat rapidly against the ground as I heard the flapping of large wings and my eyes darted about the tree line. Whatever was hunting us was aerial, I realized as I kept as still as possible. I had no idea if the creature would be fooled by my attempt at playing possum, but it was my only chance at survival.

Above me I heard branches crack and then another loud burst of wind as the beast crashed down on the floor of the forest and let out a shriek. I was too terrified to look, but just from the reverberation on the ground I could tell that this thing was large.

I focused on the pool of blood that was near to Noah’s abdomen where he had been intentionally attacked and saw little ripples against the still liquid as the creature got closer.

Long bony legs arched over his prone body and I could feel a warm body against my own skin. It took every ounce of courage I had to not shake in fear as it dropped its head toward Noah and began to peck at his insides.

I closed my eyes and started to count backward from one hundred in the hopes that it would help, but instead all I could hear was the crunching of flesh in this beast’s jaw. Saliva was dripping against my own skin.

And then, a few excruciating moments later, it was moving toward the treeline and I convinced myself to open my eyes.

I’m not sure what I was expecting to see. It was gloomy and overcast and maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me but the creature had to be at least nine or ten feet tall.

Perhaps most striking of all was that it looked like it was wearing clothes, a dark bloody red tattered cloak that reached down to its bony legs and obscured most of its body from view.

And it wore a mask. Not your typical mask, but one made of the whitest bone like it had specifically crafted it from its victims and custom made to strike fear in new prey. I couldn’t see its eyes but the fact that this thing which acted like an animal and yet stood like a man was now looking toward me with a sense of awareness, it made me want to shit my pants.

I told myself those were going to be my final moments on this planet and I was almost okay with that.

Then the creature shrieked again and disappeared into the woods, apparently too stuffed with Noah’s intestines to bother with me.

I pulled hard on the handcuff that yoked me to his corpse; realizing that the beast likely felt confident I wasn’t going anywhere anyway.

For the next hour I tried to crawl toward the edge of the meadow, stopping to catch my breath and trying to not have a panic attack as darkness fell over the forest.

I told myself I couldn’t give up. My family needed me to get home. My friends didn’t have a clue where I was and I needed to fight to live. But that was beginning to feel like it couldn’t happen, not as long as I was stuck alongside Noah’s body.

It began to rain about ten minutes later and I took it as a sign to rest. Surely the beast wouldn’t return during the mild storm. I closed my eyes and retraced my steps.

Gemma’s party had not been the smash I had been hoping for, but some parts of it had been pretty good. I remembered getting a chance to smoke a little weed, kiss a few cute senior boys and even make a cool video with my best friends to go on Tiktok.

For some reason those random videos were spiraling through my head as I lay there on the grass and one in particular popped in my head about a couple that shifted their weight and carried each other.

I looked over at Noah’s corpse, realizing that maybe I could find a way to lift his body and carry it rather than drag it and decided to give it a try.

I can’t tell you how uncomfortable it was for me to move and straddle his dead body. Noah Hunt has been nothing but a creep to me all year long, constantly trying to take unsolicited pictures of me or follow me home. I tried to even get a restraining order against him but the police didn’t take it seriously.

I wondered what they would say about current circumstances as his open wound mushed against my thigh and I held my breath and leaned in to wrap my arms around his waist. I used the pack as a way of tying a small makeshift bond between our bodies and zipped it up, carrying the load next to my body to keep his wound from touching any of my own.

Even with the handcuffs I could get it done, and now the real question became would I be able to carry his dead body.

I made my grip as tight possible and started to pull back, groaning against the shift as his arms came over me. Next I used my legs to push myself up and in the process doing the same to him. In a way, having the handcuff in the position it was in now, interlocking with my grip;was a good way of making sure he didn’t slump over and we both fall to the forest floor.

Before I could anticipate what would happen though, his body started to tilt toward mine and I began to push up to lean it against my right shoulder.

It wasn’t exactly a perfect balance like I hoped for but now I could walk and it felt as though with the way his arms were around me, it would be easier to drag him. His dead eyes were staring right down at my chest and I did my best to not puke. If he had been alive I knew Noah would be having a field day being so close to me.

Then I began to slowly move toward the forest, hoping that any sense of direction would come to me.

I don’t really know how far I walked or for how long, all I could think about was that I needed to keep going. But I used the moon as a compass and kept it straight ahead, thinking that maybe I could find the lake and then weave my way around to Gemma’s cabin.

As it turned out that actually worked. I found the shoreline probably half an hour later and from there, I worked right, spotting a shady outline of a cabin in the distance. Maybe I felt a renewed sense of urgency because I heard something off in the distance again or maybe I was just so excited to get help, but those final moments getting to the cabin seemed to rush by and I wasn’t even really aware of the fact that I had likely dragged Noah’s corpse so far.

Loud music was still blaring from the cabin as I climbed the steps, a smile on my face as I shouted to someone inside to come out. But there was no response and as I reached the door I realized it was unhinged.

My excitement turned to dread as the door slowly opened and I saw a scene of carnage.

Blood was everywhere, even on the ceiling. There were bodies strewn about and tossed like dolls and most of them were torn apart with little left to recognize them.

The creature had come here and killed every single one of my friends, I realized as I slumped down on my knees and tried to hold back tears.

As I did, I realized too late that I was not alone in that cabin. The tall cloaked creature was in the dim hallway, it’s soft growl alerting me to its presence as it loomed nearer.

“Get the hell away from me!!” I shouted as I reached for some pots and pans nearby on the marble counter and tossed them toward the beast. For some reason it was like tossing a rock into a pond and the monster’s body rippled and shifted. Unaffected by my outburst.

“What do you want from me? Why not just kill me too?” I shrieked as it kept staring at me. Given that I had lost so much already, at that moment I did feel like giving up. I didn’t really see a way that I could survive.

Then, as if acknowledging what I had just screamed, the monster opened its cloak and stretched out a long charred finger toward me, pointing toward Noah.

I felt the air leave my lungs for a very long moment, immediately repulsed by the idea that the corpse I had been carrying around was what it was searching for. I didn’t know what to think or how to feel.

I’ve hated Noah Hunt for months now, but I can’t say that I ever felt he deserved to die. And especially not at the hands of a gruesome and disgusting humanoid creature.

I could only respond to keep myself alive and shoved his weight toward the creature, closing my eyes as it’s body reacted the way an ant mound does when you disturb it. My hand felt tight as I was yanked forward automatically and it began to rip and shred apart what little was left of Noah.

But the carnage did not last long, instead it’s long bony mask was turning up toward me and sniffing the air, almost as if it was unsatisfied by what I had just offered it.

“What more do you want?!” I shrieked, too mortified to move as strange tendrils of flesh vined their way toward my chest. I was certain that I was now about to die.

But instead; it was the backpack that had been hoisted against me the creature now felt for.

The ratty old thing fell away as it broke Noah’s arm and yanked it towards the empty holes of its mask.

I watched in fascination and horror as the fleshy tendrils of its body searched the bag and dug out the coins that I had seen near the bottom. It was looking at them the way a mother might a lost infant, or so it appeared to me.

I took the chance to reach down and begin to pull my handcuffed arm away from Noah. Thanks to the new wounds on his body, his arm was now dislocated from the rest of his corpse and I actually could move freely. Having that bit of flesh still hang freely from my side was disorienting at first, but I couldn’t let it bother me if I wanted to survive.

I began to run toward the open woods again. As I reached the porch of the cabin, I had second thoughts and looked to the carnage. Gemma, or one of the others might have had a cellphone on them, I thought as I slowly moved toward their bodies.

The creature was paying me no heed but still I kept my movements slow and calculated as I reached toward one of the fresh corpses and checked for any sign of an electronic device.

Gemma was the one that actually still had a working phone and as much as I hated to do it, I had to break her fingers off of the device. Then I had to use her broken thumb as a way of unlocking it.

My first instinct was to call 911, but then an image appeared on her background as a screensaver that stopped me cold.

It was a casual shot of Gemma standing next to her lakehouse with Noah, and they were smiling and kissing as they looked toward the camera.

Gemma has always been vocal about her disgust for Noah as well, to the point that I was sure he wasn’t supposed to be at this party at all.

Yet this simple picture painted a different point of view for me.

Instead of touching the phone icon I began to read through her texts. Noah was the main one at the top.

We need to be able to contain it.

What’s going on down there? Was the ritual successful?

I don’t like how you are handcuffed to that thing. She could hurt you.

Wait. I stopped reading and realized that they were talking… about me.

What ritual? And why did she think I would somehow hurt Noah?

Out of the corner of my eye I saw the beast crawling it’s way toward a wide gaping hole in the back of the room. A doorway to Gemma’s parents wine cellar.

A flash of memory came back to me as I remember asking her why we couldn’t go down and taste some of the brews.

She had offered a flimsy excuse about her parents finding out about the party, but now I was beginning to see things in a different way.

Splinters of wood scattered around the basement door told me that the beast had once been sealed down here, and now it was returning…

I found myself stepping down the stairwell, following the creature like a lamb being led to slaughter.

It was moving its goopy body toward a stone slab that was centered in the room, placing the coins down on the slab in a precise meaningful way.

All around I saw signs of wanton destruction from when the creature had apparently been released and then my eyes focused on a video camera that had toppled over.

My mouth felt dry as I picked it up and rewound the tape. Deep down I knew what I was going to see, yet being confronted by reality was still a game changer.

The tape started with the stone slab front and center and then I saw Noah’s face brimming with life. With more purpose than I had ever seen.

He was rattling off the date and then claimed this the twenty third attempt. Behind him I heard voices. Then I saw Gemma and one of her close friends.

Carrying my sleeping body to the slab.

Noah was finishing up with the coins and placing them back in his backpack before encouraging Gemma to get back.

Once he was alone, He reached into the backpack and got out the handcuffs.

“A precaution to keep the monster from hurting anyone else,” he said to the camera.

Then he began to chant some ancient words, something that made my insides shake. On camera I saw my body so the same thing, and from within my body the creature was starting to emerge.

He was doing best to not be frightened as its charred body grappled with him and lifted him into the air.

Everywhere the beast moved my body was now its unconscious shadow. I heard the whispers of a word that told me it came from my subconscious nightmares.

I was the harbinger and cause of this evil being released on the world.

The camera ended with the masked creature looking into it and I could see my own dark reflection.

I stared across at the stone slab where it now slept, mortified by these revelations as I found myself stepping toward it.

I was a killer. A monster. An evil that Noah and my friends had tried to contain.
Tried and failed.

I turned my palm toward the fleshy tendrils with an open hand and waited as it snakes across the open air, wrapping itself tight against my skin. It had been running around the woods scared and confused and hungry.

In a matter of seconds it was now merging again with me, its host.

Less than a few minutes later, I was standing alone in the cellar.

I looked around at the blood and at the handcuff that now hung freely from my wrist. The last remnants of Noah were eaten by the monster as it came back inside me, I realized.

I took a few moments to catch my breath and then smashed the camera to bits as I took out Gemma’s phone and finally dialed 911.

I began to walk upstairs, flashes of the shadow that lived inside me replaying the carnage. They had tried to stop it. Tried and failed so miserably.

Next I stood out near the lake and looked down at the coins. These things that I felt were like offspring to me now. What powers did they hold?

I scattered them into the lake and walked away before the authorities ever arrived, deleting what I could on the phone I had just used to make the call. It was now to be a transcript of this nightmare.

When they arrive I was sure they would assume it was a teenage drunk party gone horribly wrong, and I would be seen as the victim of a sick prank.

No one would know of the darkness inside me. The evil that was now whispering in my ear. It was fully awake and our souls were symbiotic.

There are others, it said, like me that I needed to find. So I walked until I found the highway. I flagged down a friendly motorist.

“Where to?” they asked as I climbed into the back.

I looked into the rearview mirror and saw the bony mask of the beast where my face had once been. It was almost in complete control. My will was to follow.

This was how I would see myself now, for what I truly was.

“Anywhere,” I said, my voice trembling.

“Everywhere.” It added.

330