I wasn’t supposed to exist.
Every myth born in the Old Forest comes out kind, glowing, meant to guide humans through the dark.
But me?
I crawled into the world twisted — bones wrong, voice wrong, heart screaming for something I never learned how to hold: mercy.
They said I was a mistake.
A creature the forest itself tried to spit out.
A myth with hunger stitched into my ribs.
So I ran.
I hid.
I watched humans from the shadows — their warmth, their stories, their stupid, fragile hope.
Until the hunger snapped its teeth through my mind and I learned the truth:
I am not like them.
I was never meant to protect them.
I was born to hunt them.
Now the humans whisper about the thing wearing a deer’s skin wrong.
The walking nightmare with too many joints, too-bright eyes, and a voice that mimics theirs just a little too perfectly.
They call me a myth.
A monster.
A warning.
But this is my story —
how a creature born from the wrong legend tore its way into their world…
and how I learned there’s no going back to what I should’ve been.
Not when the woods still want me dead.
Not when humans now fear my name.
Not when the hunger keeps getting louder.

The first night in this new world was a damn nightmare.


I curled beneath a half-dead tree, its bark peeling like rotting skin. The air bit at me—cold, too cold. Even I felt it. Hunger gnawed at my ribs. I hadn't hunted anything worth sinking my teeth into yet.


Birds stayed too high.Snakes? Hell. No.


Deer were pathetic "almost-me's," and rabbits were just… tiny desserts. Barely a mouthful.My ears twitched.Footsteps.


A shadow lumbered between the trees, and a growl rumbled through the forest. A grizzly bear—massive, twice the height of the blond idiot when it reared up.


I rose onto my hooves, my grin stretching too wide, showing my thin knife-like teeth. The bear hesitated just a heartbeat—just enough fear pulsing off it to taste.


A delicious tiny tremor of "what the hell is that thing".


An ugly, bone-deep screech ripped out of me, echoing off the trees. The bear stumbled back, startled. My spine arched, joints creaking, eyes burning in the dark like some lying predator pretending to be a deer.


I felt my body stretch—an inch taller.Good.


I met him halfway and clamped my teeth into his leg. Warm blood flooded my mouth. He roared, staggered, tried to jerk away. I let him—slow deaths are fun.


I chased him, tasting every pulse of fear leaking from him.


But for some reason, the damn thing didn't slow.


Its fear pushed it harder, farther—stronger than it should've been.


Then it burst out of the trees and onto a highway.


I skidded to a stop at the forest's edge, shadows swallowing me whole.


I waited, licking my teeth, planning to drag it back once the humans left. I wasn't hunting people—not unless they trespassed into my territory.


But of course not.The humans got out of their iron beasts, shouting, poking at MY prey.I snarled under my breath.


They hovered around it like idiots.Fine.


I backed up, slipping into the trees. The darkness swallowed me again. As I turned, something prickled down my spine—eyes on me.


I didn't give them long enough to understand.


I bolted deeper into the forest, faster than light, vanishing between the trees.


Chapter 7 - -took my hunt-