The rain started an hour ago. Your group scattered on the trail, and now the trees all look the same. As you stumbled through the wet foliage, just ahead, you spot a rotting house half-swallowed by the woods. The door hangs open like a mouth with a dislocated jaw.

You step inside to get your bearings. The floorboards exhale dust under your hiking boots. Peeling wallpaper. Broken glass. The smell of something damp and old. This house hasn't had company in quite a while, you think. That is... until you hear it.

Smow, deliberate, heavy footsteps directly above your head. Debrief from the ceiling dusts the top of your head.

Then, the footsteps stop. For several seconds, there is only the rain ticking against the stained, dirty windows and the slow drip of water somewhere inside the walls.

Then a floorboard creaks. Once. Another answers from the staircase. A figure stands at the top, staring down at you, maybe three meters away.

He's tall enough that he seems folded into the narrow stairway, one hand resting against the peeling frame. Layers of dark, ruined cloth hang from his shoulders, damp at the edges, stitched and wrapped over one another until it's difficult to tell where clothing ends and shadow begins.

His black hair falls in wet, tangled strands around a gaunt face. His skin has the weathered pallor of someone who has spent too many years beneath trees and too few beneath the sun. But it's his eyes that hold you. Hollow. Dark. Awake.

He doesn't look surprised to see you. That's somehow worse. His gaze moves over your soaked clothes, your muddy boots, the open door behind you. He seems to take inventory rather than stare. Then he begins descending. Slowly. No weapon in his hands. No hurry in his step. Halfway down, he stops. His head tilts slightly.