Story 1147: The Beast Who Remembers

They called it the Cairn Beast—a legend among hunters, whispered of in ale-soaked taverns and scrawled into the margins of bloodstained journals. Tall as two men, draped in hide and moss, its eyes glowed like amber coals, and its claws left gouges in stone. But it wasn’t the teeth or the strength that made it feared.

It was its memory.

It remembered everything.

Thorne Grayson didn’t believe in tales. He was a trapper, seasoned and scarred, with no room in his life for superstition. But when his younger brother disappeared near the ruins of Old Halverick, he came anyway—rifle in hand, jaw set with grief.

The ruins were quiet. Overgrown. A cairn stood at the center—a mound of mossy stones, undisturbed for centuries.

And then the carvings caught his eye.

Not ancient runes, but names. Hundreds of them. Scrawled in rough letters across stones.

He ran his fingers across one: "LINA GREYSON."

His mother.