Blackpine Forest

Blackpine Forest was a wound in the earth, its trees twisted into shapes that hurt to look at—limbs bent backward, bark weeping sap like congealed blood. Mia had fled here, chasing silence after her life unraveled. The cabin she rented crouched on a ridge, its logs stained with decades of rot. She didn’t know the locals avoided Blackpine, didn’t know the hollow swallowed more than light.

The first night, the air was too still, the silence a held breath. By the second, something circled the cabin—slow, heavy steps that sank into the dirt. Mia pressed her face to the window, but the dark was a wall. She slept with a knife under her pillow, dreaming of teeth.

On the third night, she saw it. A bear loomed beyond the porch, its bulk blotting out the stars. It stood upright, swaying like a hanged man caught in a breeze. Its fur hung in clumps, revealing raw, glistening flesh beneath. Its eyes burned yellow, pupils slit like a snake’s, and its jaw hung loose, unhinged, drooling something black and tar-like. Mia bolted the door, her pulse a drumbeat, but the thing didn’t charge. It just watched, swaying, until it melted into the trees.

Dawn revealed tracks—clawed, monstrous, with toes that stretched too long, tipped with hooks of bone. Mia decided to flee to the ranger station, five miles south. She packed water, her useless phone, and the knife, then stepped into a forest that seemed to exhale decay. The trail was a scar of mud and thorns, the air thick with the stench of wet rot and something meatier.

A mile in, a growl stopped her—a sound that clawed up from the earth, wet and guttural. A bear emerged, bigger than the first, its fur a patchwork of filth and gore. Its face was wrong—half caved in, one eye dangling by a thread of sinew, the other blazing with that sickly yellow light. Its mouth split too wide, teeth jagged and overlapping, stained with dried blood. It rose, swaying, and Mia ran.

The forest became a nightmare of snapping branches and slimy roots. The bear’s growls chased her, joined by wet, slapping footfalls. She burst into a clearing and saw the hollow—a pit ringed with stones like broken fangs, its center a mound of bones. Skulls stared up—animal, human, some fused into shapes that defied nature. Flies buzzed over a fresh kill, a deer torn open, its ribs splayed like wings. The bear stopped at the edge, pacing, its dangling eye swinging like a pendulum. Mia didn’t wait. She fled back to the cabin, blood pounding in her ears.

Night fell like a guillotine. The bears returned—three now, their silhouettes grotesque against the cabin’s walls. One had a spine that bulged through its skin, another dragged a leg that bent backward, its paw a mass of oozing sores. Their growls harmonized into a drone that rattled the windows. Mia clutched the knife, barricading the door with a chair that splintered under the first blow.

The whispers came next—rasping, inhuman, a chorus of broken throats. “Flesh to ours. Bone to ours.” They slithered into her skull, cold and sharp. A claw punched through the door, black blood dripping from its jagged edges. Mia slashed, severing a toe that writhed on the floor like a worm. The bear howled—a sound like a child screaming through a torn throat—and the whispers turned furious. “You’ll rot with us.”

The assault lasted hours. Claws raked the walls, leaving gashes that wept sap and blood. One bear pressed its ruined face to the window, its tongue lolling, split and leaking pus. Mia swung a fire poker, shattering glass and flesh. The thing shrieked, retreating, but the whispers promised more.

Morning came, gray and sick. The bears were gone, leaving claw marks and a puddle of black sludge that stank of death. Mia ran for the ranger station, her body trembling. The forest was a mausoleum—silent, watching. She tripped crossing a stream, gashing her leg on a rock. Blood flowed, but the wound itched, then burned. She clawed at it, peeling back skin to reveal coarse, black fur sprouting beneath. Her nails thickened, curling into hooks.

The ranger station was a husk—empty, its radio spitting static. Mia’s reflection in a cracked mirror showed yellow eyes, teeth lengthening into fangs. The whispers surged. “Ours now. Feed with us.” Her bones snapped, reshaping, the pain a white-hot blade. She fought it, tearing at her arms until blood ran black, but the change devoured her.

She stumbled into the hollow, drawn by a pull she couldn’t name. The bears waited, swaying, their bodies a gallery of decay—split skulls, exposed ribs, fur sloughing off in wet sheets. Mia’s hands were paws now, her jaw unhinging with a crack. The hunger hit—a gnawing void that craved warm flesh, living screams. The whispers laughed, welcoming her.

Weeks later, a hiker found the cabin abandoned, its walls clawed to splinters. The ranger station was a tomb, its floor sticky with black blood. In Blackpine, the locals burned sage and locked their doors, whispering of the hollow’s brood. The bears had claimed another, swelling their ranks with something less than human, more than beast.

In the hollow, Mia swayed with her kin, her fur matted with gore, her mind a shard of shattered glass. She didn’t remember her name, only the taste of blood, the thrill of the hunt. The forest pulsed, alive with their corruption, as they waited for the next fool to wander too close. The hollow grew, and so did their hunger, an endless, rotting tide.