“There’s someone else out here!” Lucas gripped the small knife in his right hand and a silver-white cylinder in his left.
A blinding beam of white light shot from the end of the cylinder.
“Not… I’m not sure that was even a person…” Ellie stared at the thing in his hand and spoke slowly.
“The deep woods at night are full of old horror stories.
Things that mimic voices or shapes to lure lost travelers…”
A chill crawled up Lucas’s spine and straight into the back of his skull.
Every scary movie he’d ever seen flashed through his head.
Ellie couldn’t stop staring at the cylinder.
“What the hell is that?
It’s way brighter than Lumos!”
“Flashlight.
Muggle gadget.” Lucas thumbed the switch forward; the beam sharpened.
He swept it across the trees, ready for anything.
“Get the cloak back on, Ellie.
Fast.”
Ellie nodded.
She shook out the dragon-hide cloak they’d used first as a bandage and then as a soup pot, flinging off the last drops of broth.
No time to rinse it.
She wrapped the heavy hide around herself anyway.
They stood shoulder to shoulder, backs to the fire, eyes scanning the darkness.
“Maybe it’s scared of fire,” Lucas said.
“I don’t hear anything now.”
Ellie listened hard, then nodded.
“Let’s pile more wood on.
We’ll take turns keeping watch.”
They dragged another armful of dead branches over.
Ellie was insisting she’d take first shift when Lucas suddenly twisted toward the deeper woods.
Ellie stepped tight against him, tense.
“What is it, Lucas?”
He sniffed hard.
Chef’s nose—scent, taste, touch—had been drilled into him since he could walk.
A foul stench drifted through the trees, faint but getting stronger.
A couple seconds later Ellie caught it too.
Her nose wrinkled.
The smell was thick, nasty—like week-old dirty socks mixed with a public toilet that had never been cleaned.
It hit Lucas like a punch.
He ripped a strip off one of his bandages, soaked it in the stream, and tied it tight over his nose and mouth.
That helped a little.
Then they both heard it: heavy, crashing footsteps.
Something huge was shoving its way through the underbrush.
Ellie’s face went white.
She shoved him.
“Move—up the tree, as high as we can get!”
Lucas didn’t argue.
They scrambled back up the same massive oak they’d fought so hard to climb down from earlier.
He stayed right below her, boosting her whenever her one good arm slipped.
The crashing grew louder.
The stench thickened.
Ellie’s whisper was tight with fear.
“No mistake—that sound, that smell… Lucas, whatever happens, we cannot get spotted.”
Sure enough, Ellie breathed, “I can’t believe there’s a forest troll out here.”
The words barely left her mouth before a huge black shape bulldozed through the bushes with a loud crack of breaking branches.
Firelight first caught the monster’s weapon—a ten-foot club made from an entire young tree, mossy and filthy, whistling through the air.
Then the full creature stepped into the flickering glow.
Nearly twelve feet tall—taller than a one-story house.
Pale green skin, patchy coarse hair, body crusted with layers of dirt.
Its legs were thick as tree trunks, but the torso was bloated and lopsided.
Arms long enough to drag on the ground.
A tiny head sat on top, features squashed together, tiny stupid eyes glinting with dumb cruelty.
Ellie and Lucas froze on their branch, not even breathing.
They were high up, but against a twelve-foot troll swinging a telephone-pole-sized club, height didn’t feel like much protection.
The troll stopped beside the campfire, confused by the unattended flames.
It tilted its small head, let out a low, guttural grunt, and looked around.
Ellie’s stomach dropped.
She realized her fatal mistake—they should have killed the fire first.
The damn thing was a beacon in the dark.
“Just stay still…” she breathed, lips barely moving.
“Troll brains are smaller than potatoes.
They’re dumb… maybe it won’t figure out anyone’s here…”
The troll stared at the fire, grunted again, then lifted its club and slammed it straight into the middle of the flames.
BOOM.
The ground shook.
Burning sticks exploded in every direction.
The troll looked pleased with itself, grunted once more, and started to lumber away.
Lucas and Ellie both held their breath, hearts hammering in their throats.
A light breeze stirred the treetops.
Ellie’s cloak fluttered.
The troll froze mid-step.
It sniffed hard, eyes lighting up with savage excitement.
Drool flew from its mouth as it roared.
It had smelled meat.
Lucas realized it instantly—the dragon-hide cloak, still soaked with the scent of their soup, never rinsed.
They had zero time to move.
The troll’s head snapped up and locked onto the two small shapes hiding among the branches.
“ROOOAR!”
Stupid eyes turned vicious.
The troll swung its massive club in a whistling arc and smashed it into the tree trunk right below them.
BANG!
The impact rattled their bones.
Branches and leaves exploded outward.
The whole oak shook like it might snap in half.
“Climb higher!” Lucas yelled.
They clawed upward, adrenaline giving them extra strength.
The troll hammered the trunk again and again.
Each blow landed inches behind their feet, spraying wood chips that sliced fresh cuts across Lucas’s arms.
The tree rocked violently; they clung to the trunk to keep from being thrown off.
The oak was thick and tough—it held.
But before they could catch a breath, the troll roared and hurled the entire club like a spear.
WHOOSH.
Lucas ducked on pure instinct.
The massive club screamed past his head, shearing off branches in a storm of cracks and snaps.
One thick limb slammed into them.
Both kids yelped in pain.
Lucas locked his arms around the trunk, cold sweat pouring down his back.
That club had missed him by inches.
A little closer and he would’ve been paste.
Then another deafening crack— a huge rock whistled through the air and shattered the branch right above Ellie’s head.