The isolated house the sheriff had assigned to us stood at the very edge of town, right where the fog seemed determined to swallow the last decaying wooden planks.
It was a dark, austere building, its paint peeling away from the constant dampness.
The roof, heavily laden with black moss, seemed to sag under the weight of that unyielding sky, entirely devoid of any golden light.
Upon arrival, our first priority was getting our old cart under cover.
At the back of the house lay a small, dilapidated stable.
The wooden doors groaned on their rusted hinges, revealing a dark interior that smelled of moldy hay and dust accumulated over years of abandonment.
No animals were kept here—there was only emptiness and cold drafts.
As I pushed the cart’s handles to guide the vehicle inside, a floorboard suddenly gave way beneath my boot with a sharp crack.
“Well, that’s just perfect…
just what we needed,” I grumbled, pulling my foot out of the hole.
“This place stays upright by pure miracle.”
Alya, watching with the wide-eyed curiosity of a child, simply stared at me.
In the gloom of the stable, her dark eyes gleamed with a strange light.
Without her uttering a single word, I gestured for her help.
She stepped closer to the cart, gripped a heavy crate of medical supplies with one hand—one I occasionally struggled to lift myself—and set it on the ground without the slightest effort.
Then, she flashed a timid smile.
I couldn’t help but let out a slight, ironic smirk.
“Thanks for the hand.
It’s a bit wounding to my pride, but thanks.”
She didn’t answer.
Her raw physical strength and reflexes were a constant reminder of what she truly was—or rather, what she fought within herself every single day.
Once we settled inside the building, the atmosphere proved to be scarcely any warmer.
A single candle lit the main room, casting dancing, monstrous shadows against the bare stone walls.
We shared a frugal meal in near-total silence, broken only by the whistling of the wind outside.
To us, this silence wasn’t suffocating; after years of roaming the roads as Calamity Hunters, we had learned to understand each other without words.
Suddenly, long after the deep night had set in, a horrific scream tore through the dead silence of Happy.
It was a shriek of pure, unadulterated agony, high-pitched and terrifying, which cut off abruptly, muffled by a wet, tearing sound.
Alya was on her feet before the echo of the scream could even fade.
Her eyes locked onto mine, wide and tense.
The Calamity’s choice had just been made.
“Let’s move,” I said, grabbing my weapon.
We sprinted through the darkened, twisting alleyways, guided by the scent of gunpowder and fresh blood that was beginning to drift through the freezing air.
A few minutes later, we were back near the town center, not far from the house of the terrified resident we had crossed paths with earlier.
The spectacle awaiting us was born of sheer, unmitigated violence.
In the middle of the muddy alleyway lay the body of a man.
Or rather, what was left of it.
“So that story about the Calamity’s choice was actually true,” I muttered.
His chest had been literally crushed, ripped open from top to bottom by deep, clean gashes, as if giant blades had torn straight through him.
The warm blood was still flowing, steaming slightly in the freezing air as it mingled with the black mud.
The victim’s face was frozen in a grimace of absolute terror, his eyes staring wide open up at the eternal clouds.
The sheriff arrived shortly after us, his lantern shaking so violently between his fingers that the light danced erratically across the crime scene.
At the sight of the corpse, his knees buckled and he dry-heaved. Find the original chapter at g.com.
“Oh no…
no, not again…” he whimpered, his voice cracking with tears.
“It was old Thomas…
It chose him…
The Calamity came.”
I knelt beside the body, completely tuning out the sheriff’s whimpering.
I brought my fingers close to the wounds to analyze the trajectory of the strikes.
The incisions were wide, spaced in a very specific pattern.
The sheriff’s vague descriptions were finally taking a technical shape within my hunter’s mind.
“Look at this, Alya,” I said in a low voice.
She leaned in beside me, inspecting the wounds with surgical focus.
Her brow furrowed, a faint, low grunt of disgust or recognition escaping the back of her throat.
“These aren’t simple claw marks,” I continued, standing back up and wiping the blood onto my coat.
“The spacing of the gashes and the depth of the impact indicate a creature of immense proportions, possessing a crushing force capable of snapping rib bones like thin glass.
And the complete lack of footprints around the body means it either strikes from above, or moves with a speed that defies gravity itself.”
I turned back to the sheriff, my gaze hardening more than ever.
“Your monster isn’t a ghost, Sheriff.
It’s a methodical predator.
And now, we know exactly what we are hunting.”