Neeka's screams were hopelessly muffled against the gag as the creature's long and slender limbs began to slowly extend out from the shadowy cover of the woods. It was a cloaked figure, too tall to be human, or any kind of similarly human-figured species Neeka had ever encountered. What she'd at first glanced over as tree branches, blending into the rest of the forest, were actually multiply-tined antlers, very dark in colour compared to the creature's pasty grey skin that was tightly stretched over its bones.

Chillingly, as the creature's jagged gait quickened, its form began to change against the glow of the moonlight. Its physique hunched over. Bones and muscle stretching, swelling, and snapping into different positions. An eerie black mist started to drift upwards from its body, thick plumes dripped from its mouth and where a nose should be. The relatively human shape of its skull began to deform into something more animalistic. As its presence neared terrifyingly close, Neeka saw that the beast's skin and tissue were unable to stretch far enough to cover the expanding cervidae shape.

As the distance between her and the creature was hastily shortening, Neeka pulled desperately at the restraints on her hands and feet. Again and again, she tugged at her securely tied limbs. But to no avail. Eventually, as fear consumed her, her body simply froze still and a numbness took over. The only thing that Neeka could still feel was the heavy thumps of her heart banging wildly against her chest. She was left helplessly staring back as the creature ebbed closer and closer, revealing more of its grotesque form. Never did its wide, eyelid-less, and thus unblinking eyes wander from Neeka. Even when its gangly skeletal structure was looming directly atop her.

The cloak hanging from its hunched-over body resembled nothing more than filthy rags. Whatever colour the fabric had once been was now long since faded away. The sounds emitting from the beast were almost as horrible as its appearance - a mixture of rumbles, hisses, and clicks.

Spindly fingers with long, sharp, black claws draped down from its hands. Black, long tendrils of hair fell down its face and over its protruding cheekbones. The beast's lips had receded back, revealing parts of its jaw and teeth and deeming it unable to form any kind of facial expression. It arched forward onto all fours. Its eyes were now black pits with the pupils an alarmingly bright white, mimicking the moonlight the creature bathed in.

Dark streaks of fog continued to drool between its teeth and down its maw, creeping around Neeka's trembling body that was sticky with sweat. It felt dreadfully cold as it danced eerily over her skin. The monstrous figure hadn't moved further since standing over her but, for the first time, Neeka noticed the angle of its frightening gaze was no longer directed at her. It was looking away into the distance of the village. And this time the sounds emerging from the ghastly creature were a series of rhythmic clicks mixed into throaty bellows. A taunting malicious supernatural laugh, which deepened further as Neeka began to hear multiple thuds of footsteps approaching behind her.

Neeka could hear the yells of Lyall's men becoming louder as they encroached. But it was the only non-human member of his team who was first to come into Neeka's visible line of sight. Blinking back tears of fear, she watched the dark grey furred bulk of Jeffery's feral transformed-state encircle aggressively around his spine-chilling target. A transformed theron resembled that of a large feline-canine mix, but, just like in humans, their physical characteristics varied depending on their genetic lines, so it was often easy to tell them apart. Jefferey had heavy forequarters and a distinctly short tail. Like Kala, he followed his ancestors' traditions with pride - by way of his natural assets in battle - as opposed to carrying a weapon. He moved like a taunting predator keeping his prey cornered. Charging forward then retreating back. Testing how the foreign entity would react. Jeffery snarled menacingly, but the hunched skeletal figure he was hunting remained unshaken. Instead, the mist around it began to seep out thicker and its ghostly laugh continued.

Jeffery seized an opportunity to pounce, aiming his jaws to latch around the creature's neck which were loosely covered by dregs of rotten fabric. However, the moment he made contact, Jeffery screamed. It was a high-pitched excruciating sound that Neeka would have never imagined was possible to come from someone as brutish as him. The black mist's shape changed from unsettling formless smoke to multiple sharp daggers - piercing straight through him along his flank and throat. Blood spurted outwards and then showered down, staining the moonglow hue of the grass with red. Jeffrey's body went slack and was flung upwards while black murk billowed out from his orifices: his now eyeless sockets, mouth, nose, and ears. Neeka could do nothing to react as his weight slammed directly into her so hard that she lost consciousness. A putrid smell of burning and decay was the last thing she caught before she faded into the black.