The walk back to town felt longer than the miles we had crossed into the forest. The woods spat us out as if rejecting us, and the trail that once felt familiar now looked foreign under the flickering torchlight. We carried Tomas's small, limp body wrapped in a torn cloak, and behind us, the others dragged the bloodied corpse of the hunter who had died screaming beneath the creature's hands.
But the worst sight of all was Jorge half-conscious, staggering, one arm slung around Bruno's neck. For every step he took, he winced, the pain on his face carving deep lines that should not exist on a twenty-one-year-old.
Francisco followed silently beside them, his eyes hollow and fixed ahead. His feet moved, but I wasn't sure he saw where he was going. He looked as if the world around him had stopped making sense.
I held Tomas in my arms for the last stretch. His body was cooling, stiffening—his weight small yet unbearably heavy. Not long ago, he had been laughing with Francisco over some book they shared. Now the boy lay lifeless in my grasp, his hair matted with blood and soil, a bullet hole clean through his temple.
Matteo walked quietly beside me, his small hands clenched into fists. He hadn't said a word since firing the shot that ended Tomas's suffering, and though no one blamed him—not truly—I saw the guilt tightening his jaw each time he glanced at the covered form in my arms.
When we reached the healer's house, Isla was waiting.
I wish she hadn't been.
A single oil lantern illuminated the doorway, casting a trembling halo around her as she stepped forward. Her dark hair was tangled, her shawl slipping from her shoulders. Her eyes were red, swollen—not from sleep, but from the tearing ache that only a mother could understand.
"Mi niño…" she whispered.
The sound of her voice cracked the world in half.
She collapsed before I could speak, knees hitting the dirt as her hands reached toward the cloth covering her son's face. "No, no… Manuel, please… please tell me he is hurt. Tell me he is breathing. Tell me….. tell me….."
I lowered myself, unable to look her in the eyes.
"Isla… lo siento."
Her scream tore through the night.
It was not the scream of a woman—it was the scream of something primordial, ancient, a grief that clawed at the earth itself. She pulled Tomas's body from my arms and cradled him against her chest, rocking him as if the warmth of her body could reverse death. Her fingers tangled in his hair as she sobbed words too broken for prayer.
Ana rushed to her, falling to her knees beside the grieving mother, but even she could not soothe the storm. Behind her, Jorge stumbled inside the healer's house, groaning, and with him went Francisco, staring in hollow silence as Isla's cries echoed through the street.
I stood there, helpless, as some villagers emerged from their homes, lanterns flickering, whispers rising.
"Another child… Dios mío…"
"Is that Tomas?"
"Who did that to him?"
"What happened in those woods?"
Their murmurs formed a storm that gathered at our backs, but none of them dared step closer.
"Bring him inside," one of the healers called softly. "The body must be prepared."
"No!" Isla clutched Tomas tighter. "Don't take him from me! Not yet—por favor, not yet…"
Ana held her, whispering words I could not hear, her own tears glistening. And for a moment—just a moment—the two mothers clung to one another as if they could keep the world from collapsing.
But the weight of the night pulled us forward, and eventually, with gentle insistence, Tomas's body was taken inside.
I entered after them.
The healer's house smelled of crushed herbs, smoke, and blood. Candles were scattered everywhere, melting into puddles of white wax on wooden tables. The monks moved quietly between the cots, their sandaled feet soft against the floorboards. The room was cramped, the air heavy with incense meant to mask the stench of sickness.
Maria lay on one of the far cots, muttering curses as a healer pressed a cloth soaked in vinegar to her ribs.
"Hold still," he urged.
"I've held still enough for a lifetime," she hissed, then winced as the cloth touched a bruise turning purple across her side.
Jorge lay on another cot, shirt torn open, a healer examining the dark hand-shaped welt across his chest and the gashes down his arm. Ana sat beside him, gripping his hand with both of hers.
"Is he breathing normally?" she asked, voice trembling.
"For now," the healer replied. "But he needs rest."
She nodded, swallowing tears she didn't want her sons to see.
I approached quietly. "Ana…"
She didn't turn to me. Instead, she kept her gaze fixed on Jorge's face, brushing a strand of hair from his forehead as if afraid that letting go would mean losing him.
"I don't need comfort, Manuel," she said softly but firmly. "I just need my sons alive."
Her words sank into me with the weight of truth. The war had taken her husband. Now this… thing threatened to take her children. And all I could offer was the promise of protection in a world where I barely understood the enemy.
I stepped back as the room filled with whispers. Some of the hunters who had escaped the woods with fewer injuries gathered near Maria's cot
A man among them, I didn't recognise, he wasn't on the hunt, no doubt a hunter, his build gave him away….
A tall, heavy-set man with a trimmed beard and a grief-darkened gaze, no doubt wanting revenge for his fallen comrades, not really knowing the gravity of what we faced.
"They deserve to know," Bruno was saying, his voice low but firm. "We cannot keep pretending this is a wild animal or a madman. The truth must be told."
Maria shook her head sharply. "You'll cause a panic. They'll burn the whole forest down before sunrise. Or kill anyone who looks the slightest bit… wrong."
"I won't lie to them," Bruno said. "Not after seeing what that creature did to men twice its size."
Ivan nodded. "We lost one of our own. We have a right to warn others."
Maria tried again. "And what if knowing makes everything worse? What if fear becomes another monster?"
But no one listened. Not truly . They had made up their minds.
Before I could intervene, a sudden roar erupted outside the sound of dozens of voices rising in anger and confusion.
Bruno's eyes widened. "They came."
"The town?" Maria asked.
"No," I muttered. "The whole damned crowd."
They swarmed the healer's doorway before we could prepare ourselves, lanterns raised, faces twisted with fear.
"Tomas is dead!" one man shouted. "Why is he dead with a bullet in his skull?"
"What attacked him?"
"What happened to the hunter?"
"Why won't anyone speak?"
I stepped forward, hands raised. "Everyone, please listen to me. We are trying to understand…."
Ivan cut across me, his voice booming. "We had to shoot Tomas."
The room erupted.
"What?!"
"You killed a child?"
"Murderers!"
"Explain yourselves!"
Bruno stepped forward, his old voice carrying the weight of authority. "His body was possessed. The creature, whatever it is, was wearing the boy like a second skin. We all saw it. It is not natural. It is not human."
A gasp rippled through the crowd.
I saw fear bloom like fire in their eyes.
"It can take the form of one of us," Bruno continued. "It is tethered to someone in A Coruña. Someone, still alive."
The crowd recoiled, then surged like a tide.
"Who? Who is it?"
"Who brought this demon into our town!"
"Search everyone!"
"Don't let anyone leave!"
Voices overlapped, panic rising like smoke, thick and suffocating. My words were drowned before they left my throat.
Fear had taken root. And fear, once planted, grows faster than reason.
"Listen to me!" I shouted, stepping forward again. "Knowledge is power, yes but this knowledge may be the downfall of A Coruña if you turn against each other!"
They didn't hear me. Or perhaps they didn't want to because they weren't looking for reason at a time like this, they could only listen to the loudest.
So I spoke louder, sharper, using the voice the war had carved into me.
"Lock your doors!" I commanded. "Bar your windows! Hold your children close! Because whatever this thing is, it will come again as the sun sets."
Fear swallowed the room whole.
The crowd began to disperse some running home, some praying aloud, some dragging their families away as if the creature lurked in every shadow.
Only the hunter who followed the rest of the monster hunting squad remained with a face like a man on a mission… "revenge", no doubt about that.
He stepped forward, nodding once. "I, Theo Vasquez and the other hunters… we want to join your hunt. This thing ripped apart one of our own. We won't rest until we send it back to whatever hell it came from," He said with resolution.
I studied him for a long moment. Behind his grief simmered determination not reckless, but resolute.
"Then you're welcome among us," I said.
His jaw tightened. "We start at dawn."
He left without another word.
Inside the healer's house, amid the chaos of fading cries and trembling prayers, three young figures huddled together at the far end: Isabella, Francisco, and Matteo.
They whispered urgently, forming their own small circle in the storm.
Isabella's shoulders shook with silent sobs. "If I had gone with you… maybe Tomas would still be here. Maybe Jorge wouldn't be hurt…"
Francisco shook his head. "No, Isa. You don't know that. None of us knew what we were walking into."
"But I should have..."
"You would've died," Francisco said quietly. "All of us nearly did."
Matteo hovered near them, wringing his hands, guilt still etched across his face. Has he watched them both with eyes too old for thirteen, he asked a question ringing in Francisco's mind;
"You… you sensed it," he said, voice trembling. "Back there in the woods. You said you could track it. You knew where it was."
.
He hesitated, then asked softly,
"How… how did you know? How did you track it?"
Francisco's lips parted, but no words came.
Matteo leaned forward, lowering his voice.
"I believe you don't know. But I also think you're… important. A key. That thing is connected to someone, yes?
Maybe….. to you.
Or maybe you're connected to stopping it."
Francisco's breath hitched.
Isabella took his hand.
"You're not the monster, Francisco."
"No," he whispered, "but it wants me."
" I've become a target, if I'm the only one who can sense it… the creature will want me gone. I've become a threat that cannot go unnoticed."
The truth settled over them like frost
Francisco's face paled. For the first time since the woods, he looked not terrified, but fragile like a boy standing alone on a battlefield too large for him.
There was fear in his voice, not childish fear, but the terror of someone realizing fate had chosen him without asking.
Before he could say more
A scream tore through the air.
Raw. Grieving. Shattering.
"Madre" ?? Francisco whispered
I saw the three run by, breaths sharp in their throats, moments after I heard Ana Marino screaming.
I pushed through the people in the courtyard, sprinting towards where the sound originated with the hunters,
fear covered my eyes
Had another child ....
No, it only hunted at night.
This was something else, It had to be.
As the lanterns flickered wildly while we poured into the courtyard, healers and mothers and hunters all in shock.
And there beneath the old olive tree hung Isla.
Tomas's mother.
Her shawl tied around a branch, her feet dangling inches above the earth. The earth she had cried upon. The earth she had begged to return her child.
A healer was already cutting her down, shouting prayers under his breath.
But she was gone.
Her hands still clutched the torn scrap of Tomas's cloak.
Ana fell to her knees in horror, her hand flew to her mouth as she let out a sharp, broken sob.
I felt something inside Francisco had collapsed.
First Tomas. Now Isla.
The monster hadn't killed her, not directly but its shadow had pushed her over the edge all the same.
Matteo stepped forward, tears tracing down his cheek, his voice breaking as he whispered,
"This creature… it destroys everything it touches."
Isabella gripped Francisco's hand so tightly it hurt.
And I …. I felt the weight of every death press against my chest.
The monster had not even needed to kill her.
Grief had done its work.
And as I looked at the sky, darkening with the coming night.
A night that I knew promised blood.
A night the creature would hunt again.
I gazed at the ruined family before me, I understood something more terrifying than the creature itself:
The fear this creature brought was going to tear A Coruña apart long before the monster ever could.