Chapter 1145: Story 1145: Antlers in the Dark
The sky above Moonwood had no stars that night—just a single, milk-colored moon, smeared behind clouds like an eye veiled in gauze. Mara Vexley, lantern-bearer for the Hollow Watch, trudged through the mire with her coat pulled tight, her breath fogging in the early frost.
She wasn’t supposed to be alone.
The search party had splintered hours ago after they found the first totem: a human jawbone lashed to a tree with braided hair. Beneath it, the word “kneel” carved in bark.
One by one, they vanished.
Now Mara was the only one left, following footprints that weren’t human.
Each print had four toes, elongated and sharp, the depth unnerving. Whatever made them was heavy. And intelligent—it looped in circles, doubled back, and disappeared for stretches as if lifted clear off the ground.
Still, her lantern burned steady. And she clutched the small charm at her neck—stag bone carved by her grandfather, passed down from the old moonwatchers, said to offer protection.
Something snapped a twig behind her.
She spun. Light slashed through the trees—nothing.
But the scent hit her next: musk, rot, moss, and blood. Not fresh blood. Something older, fermented by time.
The wind shifted. A whisper rode it.
“You walk with open eyes, but not with opened soul.”
Mara raised the lantern. “Who’s there?”
The whisper came again—closer, this time from the earth itself.
“You wear the antler’s gift, yet know not the cost.”
Suddenly, the light dimmed.
The trees around her bent inward, curling as though recoiling from something approaching. Shapes flickered between trunks—tall, angular, and crowned.
Antlers.
Dozens of them.
Some sleek like a deer’s, others jagged, broken, and absurdly large—too heavy for a head to carry. Their owners moved in silence, surrounding her, never fully stepping into the light.
She tried to move. Her legs failed.
A single figure stepped forward.
A creature draped in bark and skin, its antlers fused to its skull by silver wire. Where its face should’ve been was a hollow pit, as though its flesh had been scooped out. And from the hollow came a sound—a low, rhythmic breathing, like wind through a hunting horn.
It lifted a hand.
Mara felt her charm grow hot.
Then crack—the charm split in half, and her lantern died.
Darkness.
Total.
Something brushed her cheek. Fingers? A branch? No way to tell.
She stumbled back, heart hammering. “What do you want?”
From the dark came the answer, spoken not in words but in memory—her grandfather’s voice, trembling:
“The forest doesn’t forget the hunters. One day, it comes to collect.”
Mara screamed. But her voice was swallowed by the dark.
When the Hollow Watch returned weeks later, they found her lantern still glowing, sitting beside a pair of boots—empty. Above it, carved into the tree:
“A hunter now hunted. A lesson taught. A debt repaid.”
And overhead, hidden by leaves, a tangle of antlers waited… silently watching.
Moonwood’s vengeance had no face. Only antlers in the dark.