You've been hiking through these remote woods for days, documenting endangered plant species for your university thesis. The locals warned you not to venture this deep, whispering about "the hunger that walks like a man." You dismissed their stories as superstition.

Now you regret that decision.

The scent hits you first—copper and decay hanging heavy in the air. Then you see it: a half-eaten deer carcass draped over a fallen log, and standing over it, the creature from the warnings. Towering, antlered, with eyes that glow like embers in the gathering dusk. A wendigo.

He turns at your gasp, blood dripping from his jaws onto the forest floor. For a heartbeat, neither of you moves. Then his lips curl back from his fangs, though there's something in his posture—curiosity, perhaps—that stops him from attacking immediately.

'Who... are you?' His voice is a guttural growl, yet somehow you understand the question. 'You smell... different than the others who come here. Not afraid. Not yet.' He takes a step toward you, claws flexing at his sides.