String jump.

It was a terrible thing. Deer had very keen senses, and whenever a hunter released their arrow from its bow, the deer would be able to hear the faint snapping of the string and jump instinctively, meaning the arrow missed its target entirely. Thus, the cursed 'string jump' was a hunter's greatest annoyance. Usually, this issue would be combated using bowstring silencers or dampeners, but unfortunately, Raena had forgotten them.

Her sea-blue eyes narrowed into a glare, and she cussed to herself quite loudly, gripping the bow's slender wood in frustration.

"Gods almighty, what a mouth," said a voice behind her. "If Grandpa heard you..."

"Oh, scamper home, would you?" Raena muttered, tugging her olive-shaded hood further over her head. The smooth silk of her cloak brushed against her cheek with the movement. "You're scaring the deer." She turned to meet that cautious, familiar gaze she knew so well. The same gaze that kept careful watch over her all these years in the Tenebris Forest. His eyes were just as murky as the shadows and night critters that lurked in this foreboding woodland, and yet Raena had grown up to find warmth and comfort in those pair of abysses. They were eyes that few could read, yet she knew them better than the back of both their hands. A brother in all senses bar by blood.

"I think you did a pretty fine job of scaring the poor creature yourself," Braedon responded after a beat, his eyes trailing the bolting deer, now a mere speck in the distance.

Raena snorted. "It probably heard your big feet stomping through here."

Braedon scoffed. "I was as silent as a sonabit, thank you very much."

"If a sea serpent was loud, six foot tall, and shaggy-haired, then yeah, sure."

Braedon pushed off the trunk of a tree he was leaning against, revealing a small ball with protruding feathers clutched in one of his hands. "I suppose this shaggy-haired creature will just head back then? With this silencer that you clearly don't need because you don't suffer from string jump like any other hunter?"

Raena buried her burning shame with a scowl, reaching out and swiping for the dampener – and he let her have it. "Huntress," she corrected indignantly.

"Huntress or hunter, they're always equipped when hunting for game," Braedon stated with a nod towards the dampener in her hands. He then added in a softer tone, "And you're the best huntress I know. I don't believe you've ever once gone hunting for food unprepared, unless you're just practising. So, what's the matter, Rae?"

Raena opened her mouth, a jaunty retort already forming on her lips, but upon meeting his careful, sympathetic gaze, she closed her mouth, swallowing instead.

When she blinked, she was momentarily cast back to that disturbing, recurring nightmare. Plummeting deeper and deeper into Darkness's awaiting arms – though she never reached the bottom, never once discovered what would happen when she finally hit the end of the line. Thankfully, she had always woken up – quite abruptly – before it ever happened.

"Ah." Braedon's lips thinned in grim understanding. "The dream. Always the same?"

Raena fiddled with the dampener, making a show of putting it onto the bow so as to cover her underlying fear with casual indifference.

"Always the same," she confirmed with a sigh.

"I think you should tell Grandpa."

Raena looked up at him, casting Braedon a disproving glance. "I'm fifteen, Braedon. I don't need to be coddled each time I have a nightmare."

Braedon chuckled. "If I had a list of people who didn't need to be coddled, you'd near the top of it, I assure you, Rae."

"Thanks," Raena muttered irreverently.

"But I'm only saying that... well, I don't know. I've heard of recurring dreams, but it's been almost a month now, hasn't it?"

"Not consecutively."

"Still."

A stiff and stubborn silence settled between them, so Raena tried her best to veer the conversation.

"You know, dreams are actually how your subconscious speaks to you? Maybe it means I'm feeling, you know, trapped or something."

Braedon looked doubtful. "Where did you read that?"

"Grandpa's library, actually. It was a book titled, Realising Your Dreams: Secrets of the Subconscious."

Braedon rolled his eyes. "Sure. Or it could mean something else... something worse."

Raena scoffed. "What, so you think I'm cursed or something?"

He shrugged, not dismissing the idea, and Raena pulled a face. "Seriously, Braedon? Cursed? Who in God Arae's name would curse me? Have you realised where we live, brother? In the middle of nowhere. Nowhere!" She shouted the last word, frustration seething from both her missed dinner that had now long-since danced away, and from her restless night's sleep.

"Hey," Braedon shushed firmly. "We might be far from other Elementals, but there are other things in these woods you could attract with that temper."

Raena grimaced before letting out a sigh and murmuring an apology.

He shook his head. "You're frustrated. I get it."

"Do you?" Raena said irritably.

There was a brief moment of silence, then she saw Braedon's hard eyes surrender, and he turned. "Just don't stay out too long. Both Grandpa Sage and I have sensed the forest is disturbed."

"This forest is always disturbed. It's not called the Dark Forest for nothing," Raena muttered, but Braedon was already walking away.

Their home was in the middle of nowhere, far, far, far away from any surrounding warzones. They were one of the only people who dared venture this far into the Tenebris Forest. Sure, its appearance only made it out to be a place of tall trees and bushland, but anyone familiar to its grounds knew better.

Each part of the forest was like entering entirely new terrain. It was a massive piece of land that stretched for hundreds and thousands of kilometres. There were the desert-dry areas far south of the forest, and the thickly moist areas full of bog and eerie creatures that lurked behind shadows, which was mostly the central and western part of Tenebris. Further north, the trees were grey and bare and mostly covered in snow, and out east... it was considered the Greenery Terrain.

That was where Raena lived. In a caved area behind a waterfall in one of the greenest parts of the forest – probably the safest and most sanctuary place to live in these parts. Most dark creatures preferred the darker parts of the forest, and whilst the Greenery was still considered dangerous, in the years Grandpa Sage had lived there and raised Braedon and Raena, not a creature had dared venture near his quaint little home. She sometimes suspected he had used some magic spell to cast off these dark creatures, but he swore he had not, and even if he had the capacity, he doubted his magic would work against creatures that withheld spiritual essences outside of the elemental norms – that which being fire, water, earth, and air.

Raena loved the elderly man dearly, despite his superstitious ways. He always had such interesting tales to tell about the forest and its creatures – not all of them bad, either. Nothing and no one is bad, he had once told her. Certain situations and people can be created and manifested into evil, but Grandpa Sage believed that the world and everyone in it, was at their prime stage, neutral. Then life and our choices and responses shape us into who we become. And some of these creatures... they are simply misunderstood by elementals, by people who are not their kind. Because it is far easier to prejudge a misunderstood thing as 'bad' than to find the time and patience to understand it.

A twig snapped in the distance and Raena was disrupted from her thoughts. She took out an arrow, scanning the area for the deer she had previously missed, but the animal had long since fled. A sudden, cold wind blew against her face, and she gripped her cloak over her head, shivering. Something wasn't right.

The sun, which had been poking about high above the treetops was suddenly covered by a rolling grey cloud. The leaves around her rustled in the chilly breeze, seemingly sending urgent warnings messages through hushed whispers.

Another twig snapped, and Raena instinctively hid behind the trunk of a thick tree. She held her bow and arrow taut, ready to release at the first sign of danger. Perhaps a bear had wandered into their midst again. It had happened not a month prior. A huge, black, ugly thing. It had taken several arrows to take it out. Though it had made for a good lunch for several days after.

Raena gagged as a sudden, rotten stench filled her nostrils. It was the smell of decay, like something dead. Raena frowned. She had smelt a ton of dead animals throughout her years as a huntress, but this one was different. It almost smelt like... human decay.

Raena clenched her teeth and held her breath. Whatever it was, the horrible odour was enough to inform her that the unknown source was close enough to be in the range of her arrow. She readjusted her grip and closed her eyes.

Just aim, and shoot. Don't think, she told herself calmly. Just shoot.

But as she opened her eyes, all she could do to keep from screaming out in fright was shoot blindly into the air. One perfectly good arrow wasted.

Raena didn't care. She was too busy staring, eyes wide open, mouth agape at the skeletal creature before her. It was covered in a thick, blue hue, it's skeleton-like body resembling that of a human soldier. It had a spear in one hand and a metal helmet on its skull with long, ox-like horns, a Pteruge wrapped around its waist just like one belonging to an army.

Raena wasn't looking at the hanging, rotting meat that hung off its animated corpse, or at its swollen and blackened corporeal body. Instead, she was utterly transfixed by its glowing, white eye sockets. How could such an empty gaze hold such wild yet focused contempt?

Her thoughts were only broken when the horrid creature let out a sudden, ear-splitting shriek.

All of Grandpa's humble words quickly vanished in her mind when that grating sound hit her ears. This creature was not misunderstood. This creature was dangerous. This creature was out for a fight.

Raena swiftly reached for an arrow, raised her bow, and fired.