That night came too fast. Too early. The sun went down like it was pushed, shoved into the earth, and the sky turned black without even passing through evening. No orange, no purple, just dark. The villagers noticed. Everyone noticed. Even the children didn't try to ask why.

People locked their doors early. No lamps were left outside. The air felt stiff—like something thick had settled over the rooftops, making the village feel smaller, like the world was shrinking around them.

Yun sat by the window, knees pulled close, hands cold though he sat near the small hearth. His mother told him to sleep. He nodded, but didn't move. Couldn't move. Sleep felt impossible, like a thing that belonged to another lifetime.

Outside, the dogs began to growl. Not bark. Growl. Low. Deep. From the belly. Like something had crawled up their throats.

Yun swallowed, heart thudding.

Something was out there.

He stood up slowly. So slow it felt like his bones were made of stone. He walked to the door, but didn't open it yet. Just listened. The growling grew louder. Then one bark. A yelp. Then silence.

Yun's breath caught.

Then came the sound.

Not footsteps.

Not animal noise.

Something else.

Like wet cloth dragging across wood. Slow. Stretching. Pulling.

shshhhhhhh—drag—shshhhhhh—drag

Yun's skin crawled.

His mother, hearing it too, whispered shakily, "Don't open that door Yun, don't you dare, whatever you do"

But Yun moved anyway. Because he couldn't not move. The sound drew him like gravity.

The door opened just a crack.

And Yun saw it.

At the far end of the street, barely lit by the faintest moonlight, something stood there. Tall. Taller than a man. Its limbs were long and thin like tree branches, bending wrong. The head was wrong too...too long, like it stretched forward. Its eyes two pale circles—glowed like fungus in the dark.

It didn't walk. It hung forward as it moved, like its bones were too soft.

Yun's breath stopped completely.

The creature turned its head toward him.

No sound.

No expression.

Just seeing him.

Yun slammed the door shut, chest collapsing, breath exploding out of him in broken gasps. His mother grabbed him and held him, whispering prayers so fast they sounded like one word.

Outside

The dragging sound moved again.

shshhhhhhh—drag—shshhhhhh—drag

Then silence.

The creature was inside the village now.

That night Yun didn't sleep. No one slept.

The next morning came but didn't feel like morning. The sun was pale, weak. Voices were whispers. The elders argued quietly but with shaking hands—whether to call for help, whether leaving would be safer, whether they should pretend nothing happened.

Shen Yu wasn't in the village.

No one had seen him since before dawn.

Something in Yun twisted. He needed answers. He needed to breathe something other than fear.

So he followed.

He didn't tell his mother. Didn't tell Liang. Didn't tell anyone. He walked toward the woods, the same place Shen Yu always looked toward, the same place the creature came from. He stepped past the first line of trees, then the second. The forest swallowed sound like a mouth.

It felt colder here. Too cold.

Yun kept walking. His heart beat fast. He tried not to think about claws or glowing eyes or the strange whisper in his skull from before. He just walked, breathing hard, pushing through branches and ferns.

Then he saw footprints. Human ones. Shen Yu's.

He followed.

The trees grew thicker. The air smelled old, like damp stone and forgotten caves.

And then Yun saw him.

Shen Yu knelt in a clearing, head bowed, hands on the ground like he was praying or listening to something under the earth. But the clearing itself was wrong—it was darker than the rest of the forest, even though the light should have reached it. The grass here was dead, all of it, in a perfect circle.

Yun stepped closer, branch cracking underfoot.

Shen Yu didn't turn around.

"You shouldn't be here," he said softly. His voice didn't sound like his voice.

Yun swallowed, throat tight. "I— I need to know. I need to understand. Tell me what that thing is. Tell me why it came."

Shen Yu slowly stood. His shoulders looked heavy, like he carried mountains on them.

"It came because it smelled you," Shen Yu said. "Your blood. Your birth. Your future."

Yun shook his head, frustration and fear mixing together. "But why me, why my family, why"

Shen Yu cut him off.

"Because you are of the Starborne. And the Starborne are hunted."

Yun felt the world tilt again.

Then branches snapped.

Both of them turned.

In the shadows between the trees

the same glowing eyes stared back at them.

Closer now.

Closer than last night.

Shen Yu exhaled once, slow.

"Yun," he said quietly. "Run."

Yun's legs did not move.

Not yet.

The creature stepped closer.

The world held its breath.

Everything...

the stars, the trees, the earth waited.

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