Story 1146: Moonlight on Clawed Feet

The moon rose like a polished blade—cold, curved, merciless. It cast its glow upon the marshes that fringed the Moonwood, where shadows grew long and the cries of night beasts echoed like laughter from forgotten gods.

Brenna Alder, apprentice to the Bonekeeper, walked the fen’s edge with nothing but a rusted lantern and a satchel of salt. Her master had vanished three nights prior, last seen following strange prints in the muck—prints too wide for any beast known to the woods.

And now, Brenna followed them too.

Each step squelched beneath her boots, and yet there were no frogs. No birds. No insects. Just silence—and that feeling, like something sharp trailed just behind her spine, never touching but never far.

Then she saw them again.

Clawed footprints.

They didn’t belong to man or beast. The toes were too long. The claws too curved. And between each print—gouges, like the creature had dragged its limbs, or worse... a second set of limbs.