It comes...

This account was discovered among the remains of one of the hunting parties of the Golden Sept, lost twelve suns past. A search for the missing Folk revealed a grisly trail of suffering and a new, terrible fate that awaits us all.

Day 1

The massive creature fell upon our campsite without warning, bursting from the shadows without warning and wrapping its meaty paws around Ren's soft form and tearing her in twain before any of her companions could so much as raise our weapons. As the rest of us arose, it stuffed her remains into its massive, moist maw and used the slimy tentacle within to pin her still struggling upper body in place while the bony protrusions within ground her to a pulp, ignoring her screams and please for help. For mercy.

To my shame, the rest of us fled, Ren’s pleas shaming us as we abandoned her to be devoured alive by the glistening creature with its patchy fur. We fled en masse for six turnings, finally coming to rest beneath a tree, gasping from exhaustion, and ashamed at our gratitude to have escaped the things clutches. Even more ashamed at our gratitude for being alive.

Day 2

There was no sleep last night.

The creature returned, cresting the hill behind us and moving towards our camp in a steady, unhurried pace, it’s gaze moving up from the ground and to our site. Its attention locked upon us, its hunger apparently unsated.

Pandemonium erupted in our camp as the five remaining hunters from our cell grabbed what we could carry and rushed across the small stream, hoping to leave the implacable thing behind us. Our haste easily outdistanced it, as it moved forward on its gangly limbs, it’s loping stride steadily devouring the distance as easily and hungrily as it had devoured Ren’s broken body.

Day 3

We are being stalked. Each time we pause to rest, the creature appears behind us, unchanged and unbothered by lack of sleep. By lack of rest. Driven by its hunger for our flesh. By its devour to destroy us.

We stagger on, hoping for a miracle. Hoping to find some shelter, a sanctuary where it can’t find us.

Day 4

We lost Druz last night. As we staggered forward, he stumbled and was unable to rise. We gathered to help him, to bring him with us. To save him where we’d failed Ren.

He refused, rightfully pointing out that he would only slow our escape. He wouldn’t burden us and hoped to buy us time with his life. To sell it dearly to that which followed.

His cries of agony still haunt me.

Day 5

Sleep is denied us once again. Hoping that Druz’s sacrifice had gained us precious time, the other three slumped to the ground, starving for a respite. I remained upright, taking first watch and dreading the thought of seeing the now all-too-familiar form of the thing’s bulbous head appearing on the horizon.

In less than three turnings it did, picking up speed as it sighted us.

It would be the sight of nightmares if sleep were something I could remember.

I roused my three remaining friends and we stumbled into motion once more, unsure of how much longer we could endure.

Day 6

One turning is indistinguishable from the next, and each is an exercise in misery. We push against exhaustion as if it’s a tangible thing, forcing our way forward to avoid what is behind us. To the fate that awaits should we falter.

Someone has to warn the rest of The Folk. Someone has to tell them that the day we feared had come. That the creatures we feared had entered our range.

Its tread foretold our doom.

Day 7

Still no sleep as we press on, fully aware that to stop is to die. When one of us stumbles, no one says anything. We only have the energy to concentrate on plodding forward. On escape.

It’s a fool’s dream. We all know it.

Our fates were sealed the moment it found us.

Day 8

Both El and Zat fell today. They were always sweet on each other, which will make it so much worse that they’ll see what the thing does to their beloved.

I don’t stop. At this point, I don’t even have the ability to feel shame at my lack of compassion for my fellow hunters. To think about how I should have behaved. All I can do is press on. And on. And on.

Every time I pause, the thing comes. Sleep is a distant memory, and I thirst for it like a drowning victim thirsts for air, but the creature won’t allow it. The relentless pace that it sets drives me forward, robbing me of any action other than flight.

Day 9

I’ve slowed to the point that the thing is never beyond my sight now. A constant, morbid reminder of the fate that awaits me the moment I falter. Its insatiable appetite wasn’t sated by the flesh of the rest of my party. By my friends. We’ve run, some of them fought, but in the end, it has all ended the same.

To face this beast is to be devoured.

I don’t think I could sleep now even if I were given the opportunity.

Day 10

I don’t know how much longer I can last. I’ve had precious little sleep these past ten suns. Each time we pause, the creature appears on the horizon for rest. Mol fell earlier today, too tired to continue. I could hear his weak cries as the creature fell upon him, slaying him and taking his corpse as some sort of grisly trophy.

I am alone and unlikely to last much longer. I have not managed to take rest since this monster fell upon us. I shake with exhaustion and as I see it round the bend at the end of the valley, a long, sharp sliver of wood clutched in its paw, I know that I am undone. The beast has pushed me beyond the ability to endure. For any of The Folk to endure.

Its footsteps are the harbingers of our extinction.

These humans will be the death of us all.