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INTRO

The marsh was darker than usual, that night. Heavy clouds from the western range crept down the peaks, turning into a slow-moving fog that slid through its tangled undergrowth. As the land began to rise over to the east, the fog was forced to turn back into the valley by a southern air current there where the mountains no longer shielded it; this made it pour back into itself, becoming thicker than it already was.

It was then that a sudden explosion of light shattered the darkness, revealing the landscape in the light of day. In those few moments preceding the thunder clap that marked its disappearance, one could see the twisted bare branches of the tallest trees protruding through that even grey blanket that went all the way to the western range; the mountains formed a semi-circle around the marsh with their staggering walls of jagged rock before resuming on their way to both horizons. While almost no vegetation grew on the vertical slopes, the softer hills to the east were of the greenest purest green before being engulfed by the overruling darkness that followed that brief magical event--in fact, although it could have been mistaken for a lightning strike, it certainly wasn't one.

Such an explosion had taken place a few feet above the fog, with the sky above being dotted by a myriad of stars. The foggy, deep wet and cold marsh, with its many streams leading to ponds and their respective clearings, was usually dead quiet in the middle of such a winter end's night. Yet after being permeated by that light, powerful enough to break through, creating numberless rays spreading out from its originating point, it took to life. Large crow-like birds spread their wings and left it as apish guttural howls and high-pitched shrieks broke a silence marked only by the whisper of the western wind stirring the fog.

None of these happenings was known by the mind of the outsider who had appeared as a result of the magical light, folded in two with both his head and legs pointing down. Only his waist rested on one of the thicker high branches near the top-edge of the fog a short distance away from where the magical phenomena had originated.

He was unconscious.

The howls and shrieks persisted only to turn quiet all of a sudden, and this stirred the outsider's subconscious as it tried to wake him up from an induced torpor, but it was only for a moment before he was sent back to total oblivion. It was an isolated scream, a wild and frightening scream coming from somewhere below and much nearer this time, that managed to shake him up... only to unsettle the delicate balance which held him suspended on the slippery bare and twisted branch of the tree on which he was laid to rest.

He fell.

The outsider only managed to shield his face as he took a dive from the top of the tree into thicker fog and the smaller branches below. Wood snapped with loud cracks as it broke the fall of his numb body, which then hit one of the larger lower branches that flexed without breaking, catapulting him to a backward splash in freezing cold waters.

In utter physical and mental shock, it was more of an instinctive reaction than a decision that to reach for the surface and gasp for air. All of the clothes he was wearing were totally soaked as he made it to shore, struggling but making it out only by digging his bare hands in slime. He was getting on his feet when he heard one of those shrills, a devilish call that wasn't a sign of anything good, consciously for the first time. His body was now shaking from both the cold and a well-justified fear, one provoked by the dreadful cry he just heard as well as that of not having the slightest idea of what he was doing there or how he got there, followed by the enormous doubt caused by not recalling who he was!

Although something in him urged him not to pause, he couldn't see a thing due to the darkness and that dense fog surrounding him; he could barely make out the tree from which he had fallen as well as the mud and water he was standing in; no more, no less. Again, either instinct or some past experience urged him to move away, and so he did notwithstanding the shock of such terrifying realizations. As he made off quick with his arms stretched out in front of him, he went past a couple of smaller trees struggling not to fall as the invisible ground was strewn with brambles interwoven with surfacing roots. He slowly made ground between him and the pond, lucky to find the shallow stream which fed it that allowed him to make faster progress. It was then he realized he was wearing boots that suited the conditions, even though filled with muck and water. He then heard that thing again, that creature which had made the horrible sound but this time it was more like a series of a low-pitched growls coming from a short way behind him. Adrenaline made his heart pump faster and his steps longer and brisker although still calculated and not panicked--it amazed him how, yet unknowing of what was stalking him, he was managing to stay in control, experiencing a special awareness that he couldn't explain. As he started to run upstream in a splash of rubber boot soles, he knew it would be pointless to try and climb any of the slippery trunks by the side of the stream's bed, and didn't have to try to discover such a feet would have been impossible. Just like that, he decided to leave the stream behind once he believed there was enough ground between him and those creatures on his tail. He was quick to realize the bushy hiding place he found for himself wouldn't work for long as the hunter certainly relied on smell, and not vision, to catch its prey in such environmental conditions... and in that instance he was prey, he thought.

Resorting to hiding would only work if he concentrated so to spot the attacker by listening--it had to make a noise to get there and that he counted on... but how could he defend himself from it, whatever it would turn out to be?

He refused to believe it was some kind of nightmare as it was all too real. Squatting inside the mass of thorns he opened his way in with the arms of his leather jacket, he closed his eyes (which could see about a palm in front of him and were mostly useless), opened his mouth to pop his ears open so to catch even the slightest of sounds... and he could hear it slowly approaching, he could hear it smell the air and grunt right, right about where he left the stream to hit the dense grove, twenty or thirty yards away. More of whatever lived in those dreadful woods was on its way, as he twisted his head back to the sound of cracking wood marked by the heavy pounding of steps. This had alerted the howling creature that had stopped dead, probably after the same new sound he was hearing.

When it howled again the sound was so loud it reverberated in his chilled bones--a few seconds later the call was answered by more howls and shrieks in the distance, and whatever was making them had to be larger and stronger than he was. While completely oblivious to it before, something clicked in the outsider's mind which prompted him to tap his wet jacket with both hands before his right one found the grip of a gun still resting in its waist holster--there was no time to think why he had one on him, as he just couldn't remember, but that didn't stop him from extracting it--a Glock 34 pistol which could fire even though water came out of its magazine when checking to find it was fully loaded. Eighteen nine millimetre rounds were more defence than he could deliver with his hands alone as he waited hidden in fog and darkness, unsure where the wind was blowing from and how long his cover would last.

The creature that stalked him was no longer approaching directly, it made a circle around him, probably after that other, heavier, approaching noise. It seemed to him that whatever he heard stomping in those woods was making its way around him as well, as if looking to join the stalking creature which he could hear no more--but these were only suppositions as he heard the howls again, many of them closing in on him. Slowly coming to a stand above the thorns he was hiding in, he dashed out of them only to catch his boot and trip, scratching his hands and face but managing to avoid a misfire. He painfully made it out of the tangle and up a slippery hill where he helped himself up by holding to the creepers of the overhanging branches. Even though visibility was down to zero he could count on terrain advantage as whatever was coming up had to--

The outsider opened fired as a horrible staggering figure rushed up the hill arms above its head, where only the sound of its charging feet had given it away. He put five rounds in its chest more or less where he believed its heart would be before the creature stopped--that hulk of muscle, whose features he couldn't see other than being startled by its abnormally wide shoulders and nine feet tall silhouette, collapsed a few steps away from his feet. As it was no longer moving, curiosity took over and the outsider reached out with his left hand to find the large creature was covered in fur. With no more time to investigate he had to move. The growl of what sounded like a huge lion answered the howls and shrieks that were now coming from all around him.

Gripping the pistol tightly not to lose it if he fell again, the outsider stormed through the wood as fast as he could, his vision adjusted allowing him to barely see where he stepped after each jump. He had to stop on the shore of yet another of those slimy ponds; something on the other side made a noise, he aimlessly pointed his gun at the sound but didn't fire, instead moving in the opposite direction to where he believed whatever it was was going, then resumed running and was partly reassured to hear the battle of roars and desperate shrieks and howls behind him. Unfortunately it wasn't over as he thought; there seemed to be no end to that nightmare as more horrifying howls came from all around him: the place had to be crawling with those things, he thought, and that would probably be the end of it. With no other hope but to find himself another hiding place, he tried to make some sense of all of that confusion, and as the minutes ticked away and no more sounds came from the forest, the focus he previously summoned gave way to cold shivers, hunger, and the more generalized fear given off from no longer knowing his name or who he was, in the least what he was doing in a forest of populated by monsters armed with a G34. As he held it in shaky sweaty hands, he just knew that gun but couldn't recall why he had it, or where it came from. More worried than bothered by his amnesia, he managed to stop getting distracted by such confused thoughts. One of those hulks could just be walking up to him to break his neck from behind if he wasn't careful enough. What would have been of him once he expended the thirteen rounds left in his magazine, how would he evade that dreadful forest and its denizens, what would he find out there if the sun was to shine over that dark and mysterious land?

All such questions were suspended after a not-well-specified amount of time hiding in a bush. That something larger was approaching him now, as if it didn't care to hide its progress... experience, and who knew what else, indicated that it wasn't with any of the shrieking creatures. It was coming directly at him, as if it knew where he was, a huge creature that traversed the tangled vegetation as if it could see in the dark. It was obviously not bipedal and coming at him on all fours.

The outsider knew there would be no running away this time. And it wasn't going to be like dropping one of those_Yeti-_like creatures. So, he jumped out of cover opening fire, and what happened next took all of the wind out of him. He could distinctively tell that the first three rounds he fired ricocheted against what had to be a bullet-proof armour of some kind, with the fourth one thumping though flesh as the massive figure in front of him leaped and landed on him.

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