When she came back to the spot where their cow was found dead, dragging her father along in the hopes that the poor creature might be saved, there was no cow to be found at all. She knew it couldn't have gotten very far, not with the gaping wounds in its side from impossibly large claws and the pool of blood it was laying in.
No. Instead of a dying cow, among the blood they found a staircase that made their vision pulse to look at for too long. Her father immediately wanted to cover it and burn the ground around it just in case it was cursed but they both knew it was far beyond such superstitious nonsense.
This was something you'd have to leave the country to escape, something that couldn't travel the sea, something old that had been deliberately woken up by someone who had more of a death wish than they had common sense or empathy or rationality.
She ended up dragging her father back to the main farmhouse to plan their next move, desperately pretending that the scrabbling sounds coming from behind and beneath them were rabbits. They talked loudly about a sealing ritual they'd definitely heard about, hoping it might deter the thing following them.
It did not.
It started scratching the door as soon as they closed it behind them, claws already peeping through the thick wooden frame as it slowly but surely shredded their pathetic attempt at barricading themselves. While she and her father gathered up the hunting rifles and all the ammo they'd stored away the realised just how slowly the creature was going.
Patience was the word that came to mind. Patience reinforced with the quiet confidence of a predator that felt as threatened as a lion facing a lone ant. As more and more of its claws came through the wood and they started getting glimpses of its body, they turned their rifles around and fired.
No. Instead of a dying cow, among the blood they found a staircase that made their vision pulse to look at for too long. Her father immediately wanted to cover it and burn the ground around it just in case it was cursed but they both knew it was far beyond such superstitious nonsense.
This was something you'd have to leave the country to escape, something that couldn't travel the sea, something old that had been deliberately woken up by someone who had more of a death wish than they had common sense or empathy or rationality.
She ended up dragging her father back to the main farmhouse to plan their next move, desperately pretending that the scrabbling sounds coming from behind and beneath them were rabbits. They talked loudly about a sealing ritual they'd definitely heard about, hoping it might deter the thing following them.
It did not.
It started scratching the door as soon as they closed it behind them, claws already peeping through the thick wooden frame as it slowly but surely shredded their pathetic attempt at barricading themselves. While she and her father gathered up the hunting rifles and all the ammo they'd stored away the realised just how slowly the creature was going.
Patience was the word that came to mind. Patience reinforced with the quiet confidence of a predator that felt as threatened as a lion facing a lone ant. As more and more of its claws came through the wood and they started getting glimpses of its body, they turned their rifles around and fired.
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