Lucas stood at the edge of the clearing, his oversized jacket swallowed by the mist. He didn't look at the sky. In this town, the sky was just a lid on a jar, gray and suffocating. He looked instead at the shed. The wood was black with rot, weeping beads of moisture that looked like sweat.

The air in the woods didn’t just feel cold; it felt old . It tasted of wet cedar and something sharper—the metallic tang of blood cooling on damp earth.

He clutched the plastic grocery bag in his hand. It contained scraps—graying meat from the back of the freezer—but he knew it wasn’t enough. The thing behind the door was hungry for more than calories. It was hungry for the marrow of the family tree. "I'm here," Lucas whispered.