Information

Nightbreed has a minion!

Terror the Spinepeck

Nightbreed
Legacy Name: Nightbreed

The

Nightmare Devonti
Owner:

peachi

Age: 14 years, 8 months, 3 weeks

Born: July 31st, 2009

Adopted: 14 years, 8 months, 3 weeks ago (Legacy)

Adopted: July 31st, 2009 (Legacy)

Statistics

Level: 47
Strength: 156
Defense: 116
Speed: 112
Health: 112
HP: 110/112
Intelligence: 245
Books Read: 210
Food Eaten: 48
Job: Caregiver to Living Experiments

Beware, Beware.

Your grandfather has a cabin in the woods. It's small, and quaint, hidden in a clearing deep in the woods overgrown with tangled trees and snarled weeds. Sometimes, he takes you on overnight hunting trips and you two stay in the cabin equipped with nothing more than a few heavy animal blankets, a built-in fireplace, two hunting rifles, and the skin off your backs.

Tonight, he has succeeded once again in persuading you to come out to the cabin. You sit with him in the warm light of the fireplace as the wind howls angrily outside. It seems that you've picked a bad night to come here, you think, as the snow taps on the windows with urgent, icy fingers. You don't entirely think it was worth it, spending the night tucked away in a grove of spindly trees miles deep in the forest, just to catch a couple of ducks. But oh well. He's your grandpa.

Tonight he's in one of his moods. Sometimes he gets fired up and assumes the role of Storyteller Grand Master. And out here, in the middle of the woods, surrounded by darkness and dirt and the leaves on the trees, there is nothing better to do than listen. So you oblige.

He starts a story but you have to interrupt and remind him that he told that one last time. He nods, brow furrowing. Then his eyes glass over and he says,

"Hey. Do you want to hear something really scary?"

You nod fervently because, yes, of course you do - who doesn't like a good scare? But apparently you don't understand just how scary it is so he rambles on.

"This legend is rarely told out loud. It's rarely even remembered. It's an old tale, from the beginning of time, when the earth was young. When I was just a child, an old woman told me the tale. And you know what happened right after she told me?"

You snort because you know quite well what's coming next.

"She died."

You nod, your mouth twisting into a smirk. It's just another gimmick. His stories are never really scary. He's making it up, like the rest of them, so he can build up to his big scare and in the end you'll jump and he'll laugh. He continues.

"You know that people get lost in the woods. You hear it every once in a while, you see the rescue helicopters looking for people. I don't know their reason for going in in the first place - maybe they want to take a walk, or maybe they want to go on a hike, or maybe - like us - they want to go hunting. At any rate, they get lost."

You stare at him intently.

"Can you imagine that? Getting lost in a place like this, in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by the towering trees and the smothering darkness? Can you imagine what could be out here with you?"

You glance outside at the moon peering through the windowpane. You pull the blanket tighter around yourself and shift on the couch uncomfortably.

"Most of them come out. Maybe they take a couple of days to find. But they come out nonetheless. But some of them vanish. No footprints, no bodies. Nothing. And then they're gone forever. No one will ever find them, not in this - the last frontier, the untouched, untamed beast that is Mother Nature."

You peek again out the window and look at the massive tree standing guard by the cabin.

"Do you know what happens to them, son?"

You shake your head. You're not entirely sure that you want to know. You want to tell him to stop, stop it right now, I don't like this anymore, but you're entranced by the reflection of the fire in his glasses licking at the air and the sound of his voice swirling around the room, streaming down your spine in cold bursts.

"The old woman told me what happens to them. She told me about the entity that takes them."

You want to tell him. You really want to tell him to STOP IT but you can't seem to open your mouth.

"She said that it looks like a ram, with long hair and wild eyes. Can't you see, in vivid detail, its sharp teeth and curling horns, covered in thick splotches of clotted blood? Can't you smell the rank, musty odor of its coat as it nears you? It is massive, all-encompassing, but impossible to see fully. It lurks in the shadows. It is the manifestation of the night itself. And out here, where there are no city lights shining into the trees, night can encroach past the door frame, right up to you where you're not protected anymore."

You want him to stop. You don't want to look back at the window because you can feel something watching you. You can feel its eyes on your neck. But you won't look back. You're too afraid of what you might see.

His voice drops to a whisper.

"It is an ancient beast, older than time, and it needs blood. It needs something to feed on. And so it takes the stragglers. But no one knows about it - they can't. It must protect its secrets so that people will keep coming into the forest where they'll be close enough for it to take."

He looks at the window and bolts up suddenly, back straight. His head snaps towards you and he lunges at you and grabs your arm, speaking in frantic gasps.

"I never should have told you. But I couldn't bear it. I just couldn't bear it! I couldn't stand knowing the secret - not telling anyone. You can't tell anyone. Do you hear me? You have to let the secret die with you. It will kill you if you tell. I shouldn't have told you."

You clamber away from him, stammering. Surely this isn't real. Any minute he'll stop and laugh.

"I'm sorry. Let the curse die with you."

Any minute now.

But when the door blows open and lets in a burst of cool night air you know it's not a joke and you know he won't stop and laugh. Out of the corner of your eye, you see a shadow shoot towards him, and you can almost feel the unpleasant brush of coarse fur against your skin. In a second, he is on the floor, writhing and coughing up blood, and then he runs out of the cabin screaming.

Out of the corner of your eye, you think you can still see the shadow lurking in the corner of the cabin, away from the light that the fire puts out.

Your grandfather is gone. When you peer out of the window, the clearing outside the cabin is empty. You are completely alone, stranded on a tiny island in the middle of the forest.

You settle onto the couch, shivering, and wrap the blanket around you. It's so cold. You close your eyes tightly but you cannot sleep. So you open them and let the dread pool in your stomach.

In front of you is a dark face with bloodshot eyes and jagged teeth. Horns curl around its ears and a wide grin stretches its cheeks. The air between you is heavy with the smell of blood. Your breath picks up until you are sure you are hyperventilating and it leans closer and whispers into your ear, in a rasping voice that is nothing and everything at once, twigs cracking and thunder booming and rain pouring, "Don't tell."

I'm sorry that I had to tell you this. I never should have told you. But I couldn't bear it. The burden. And now it is coming for me.

Don't tell.

It's watching.