Wei felt a sudden tightening at the back of his neck.
It was the kind of feeling that came when something stood too close—so close it slipped into your shadow without making a sound.
He stared at the stretch of forest behind them, where the last scraps of light were being swallowed one layer at a time. The trees pressed together as dusk sank, their overlapping branches forming crooked black walls.
He did not know what he was waiting for.
There was nothing to see.
"What is it?" Chun asked. She had noticed the change in him right away.
"Don't talk," Wei said quietly. His voice had hardened without him meaning it to."I think there's a wild animal."
He reached back and drew his hunting knife. The handle was wrapped in rough twine. The familiar thickness of it in his palm steadied him, just a little.
Chun didn't argue. She rose without thinking, grabbed the basket of dry firewood, and held it in front of her chest like a shield—an unconvincing one, but the only kind she had.
They held their breath.
Leaves rustled as the wind passed through the canopy. Somewhere far off, a night bird let out a short, sharp cry—and then the forest went still again.
Nothing appeared.
Time stretched.
It stretched so long that Wei began to wonder if his nerves had betrayed him.
"Maybe you heard wrong," Chun whispered. Her voice was so light it barely disturbed the air.
The strange feeling faded as suddenly as it had come. Wei glanced back at the trees, uneasy but embarrassed.
"…Maybe," he said."The beast probably saw me and ran away in fear."
Chun let out a small laugh."Wei-ge, you're really good at bragging."
His ears warmed. Wei slid the knife back into its sheath and turned away, pretending calm."Come on. It's getting dark."
They followed the narrow path that wound through the woods toward the village.
It wasn't a long walk, but the trail twisted tightly between dense thickets that blocked out the sky. The village lay at the far end.
There were fewer than ten households there.
All of them belonged to refugees.
After the cities fell, most people either died or were dragged away into slavery by the undead. Only a handful escaped into the forest and clung to life, treating this place as their final refuge.
They were halfway down the path when Wei slowed and wrinkled his nose.
"Wei-ge… what is it?"
"Do you smell that?"
Chun stopped and sniffed the air.
There was something burnt about it.
But Wei knew at once it wasn't wood.
It wasn't clay being fired, either.
It smelled like living hide scorched by flame.
Sharp. Bitter. Wrong in a way the body rejected before the mind could explain it.
"Could someone be roasting a goat?" Chun asked quietly. Her breathing had picked up. She was always quicker to fear than Wei, even though she tried hard not to show it.
Wei didn't answer.
He inhaled again.
Smoke.
Ash.
And beneath it all, a faint sour stench—one that did not belong to their village.
His stomach dropped.
"I hope so," he said.
They kept moving.
Before they reached the edge of the woods, the smell grew stronger.
The light ahead changed.
It wasn't the steady flicker of firelight. Instead, broken red reflections pulsed through the trees, stretching shadows into jagged silhouettes, then tearing them apart again.
"Maybe… the old goat shed caught fire again," Chun said slowly, as if trying to convince herself.
Wei heard the hollowness in her voice.
"Stay behind me," he said.
The forest fell unnaturally quiet.
No birds.
No insects.
Not even the small, familiar sounds that usually drifted from the village at this hour.
Wei's unease kept climbing.
Because at the village entrance—
there should have been someone waiting.
Every time Wei returned from hunting, his father stood there, tall and unmoving, long before Wei ever reached the path.
Always waiting.
This time, there was only smoke.
The wooden fence at the village gate stood open.
No—
it had been torn open.
Deep gouges marked the posts, as if something with claws had ripped through them by force. The broken slats sagged crookedly, collapsed into the dirt.
Black smoke rolled through the village.
Ash drifted down slowly, settling on the ground, the rooftops, and the glowing remnants of fires not yet dead.
Chun sucked in a trembling breath."Wei… this isn't right. Something's really wrong."
Wei didn't reply.
His heart was beating so fast it hurt.
There should have been noise—shouting, panic, people running back and forth.
Instead, there was silence.
The wrong kind of silence.
He forced himself to step forward.
He had barely taken one step when Chun grabbed his wrist.
Her grip was shockingly strong.
Wei turned.
Her eyes were wide, frozen on something ahead.
"Th–that… what is that?"
Wei followed her gaze.
By the well, a horse stood in the shadows.
"…Why is there a horse here?" he whispered.
Wei pulled Chun down at once, lowering his body until his chest nearly brushed the ground. Keeping to the edge of the forest, they crept toward the village from the side.
"Could it be a wild horse?" Chun whispered.
She sounded unconvinced even as she said it.
In a place like this, even if you spotted a wild horse from far away, it would bolt the moment it sensed people.
This one didn't move.
"Then… does that mean someone rode here?" Chun asked.
Her voice dropped even lower.
The closer they got, the clearer it became.
It was a horse.
At least, its outline was.
It stood beside the well, motionless in the darkness.
Distant firelight flickered across it in broken intervals, stretching its shadow long—then slicing it apart again, as if something were cutting it over and over.
Wei didn't speak.
"Wei…" Chun murmured.
"Look at it," he said.
They edged forward another step.
The horse's skin clung tightly to its frame.
It wasn't torn.
It didn't look wounded.
It looked… worn.
As though it had been rubbed again and again over a long period of time.
In places, the hide had grown shiny. So thin it nearly fused with the bone beneath, stripped of all natural rise and curve.
"The skin's rubbed raw…" Chun whispered."That poor warhorse."
From a slightly different angle, she could see white bone beneath the damaged hide.
Wei's chest tightened.
The horse had its head lowered. Its neck moved slowly, rising and falling as it made small, steady sounds.
Unhurried. Unconfused.
Like a creature long accustomed to repeating the same action.
"It's eating," Wei said quietly.
"That's nonsense. There's no grass by the well," Chun snapped back without thinking.
The moment the words left her mouth, she froze.
On the ground beside the well lay a body.
The blood was still fresh.
Dark. Almost black.
The horse's mouth was pressed to the corpse.
Its teeth sank in, then loosened.
Once.
Then again.
Crack.
Tear.
The sounds were soft.
But in the night, they were impossible to ignore.
Blood dripped from its jaw and fell to the ground.
It didn't splash.
The air grew heavy.
The smell—
It was the same thick stench that filled the village after pigs were slaughtered.
"Ah—!"
Chun couldn't stop herself.
The moment the sound escaped her—
The horse stopped.
All movement ceased.
Then—
Slowly—
It raised its head.