# "I Signed Up to Work in a Fire Lookout Tower. But I Can’t Explain What I Saw" Creepypasta

An episode of [CreepsMcPasta Creepypasta Radio](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1492008134), 16 Jun 2025, 27 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/66577644/i_signed_up_to_work_in_a_fire_lookout_tower_but_i_can_t_explain_what_i_saw_creepypasta.mp3

CREEPYPASTA STORY►by Saint Zander Creepypastas are the campfire tales of the internet. Horror stories spread through Reddit r/nosleep, forums and blogs, rather than word of mouth. Whether you believe these scary stories to be true or not is left to your own discretion and imagination. LISTEN TO CREEPYPASTAS ON THE GO- SPOTIFY► https://open.spotify.com/show/7l0iRPd... iTUNES► https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast... SUGGESTED CREEPYPASTA PLAYLISTS- ►"Good Places to Start"- • "I wasn't careful enough on the deep web" ... ►"Personal Favourites"- • "I sold my soul for a used dishwasher, and... ►"Written by me"- • "I've been Blind my Whole Life" Creepypasta ►"Long Stories"- • Long Stories FOLLOW ME ON- ►Twitter: / creeps_mcpasta ►Instagram: / creepsmcpasta ►Twitch: / creepsmcpasta ►Facebook: / creepsmcpasta CREEPYPASTA MUSIC/ SFX- ►http://bit.ly/Audionic ♪ ►http://bit.ly/Myuusic ♪ ►http://bit.ly/incompt ♪ ►http://bit.ly/EpidemicM ♪ This creepypasta is for entertainment purposes only

## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: Around five years ago, I started gravitating towards jobs that
[0:06] Speaker 1: made solitude a requirement instead of a consequence. Just after
[0:11] Speaker 1: finally accepting that I was an introvert, I tried wild
[0:15] Speaker 1: life surveys, a forestry internship, and even worked private fire
[0:19] Speaker 1: mitigation one summer before this gig found me. It's how
[0:24] Speaker 1: I ended up at my post on the Northern Edge
[0:27] Speaker 1: Tower nine. The government or whoever owned this place referred
[0:33] Speaker 1: to it as a conservation perimeter or some other empty phrasing.
[0:38] Speaker 1: What it really was, though, was a swath of wilderness,
[0:41] Speaker 1: too big and too wild for anyone to trust leaving alone.
[0:46] Speaker 1: The acreage stretched far enough to swallow towns Hall. Thirteen
[0:51] Speaker 1: fire towers covered the zone. Thirteen watchers, if you counted
[0:55] Speaker 1: us all. They called us rangers, though it was more
[1:00] Speaker 1: about fire prevention than policing hikers or keeping bears away
[1:03] Speaker 1: from trailheads. Most rangers keep to their towers, but some
[1:09] Speaker 1: of us made a habit of breaking the rules we
[1:11] Speaker 1: decided were pointless. Technically, we weren't supposed to leave our
[1:15] Speaker 1: posts without clearance, especially during the dry season, but out here,
[1:21] Speaker 1: miles from the nearest supervisor, the rules didn't mean much.
[1:27] Speaker 1: Logan worked out in Tower seven, which sat a good
[1:30] Speaker 1: few miles east, and he didn't talk much about where
[1:34] Speaker 1: he came from. He gnored through most of the conversation,
[1:38] Speaker 1: say something dry under his breath, then go quiet again.
[1:43] Speaker 1: But he was solid. We didn't hang out often, but
[1:47] Speaker 1: sometimes we'd meet half way between towers, trade supplies, pass
[1:51] Speaker 1: a flask, and sit in silence. I liked that about him,
[1:57] Speaker 1: but not everyone was like Logan. Ezekiel worked out of
[2:02] Speaker 1: Tarer eight, the closest one to me, and he'd been
[2:06] Speaker 1: there longer than anyone. Every ranger I asked gave me
[2:10] Speaker 1: a different answer about how long it'd been around. Some
[2:14] Speaker 1: said five years, others said twenty. I knew only this.
[2:21] Speaker 1: He never left. Those were the only two towers that
[2:26] Speaker 1: were within reasonable trekking distance. The other towers sat so
[2:30] Speaker 1: far away the only interactions I ever got with them
[2:34] Speaker 1: was through the radio. Winter rotation was optional. Most of
[2:39] Speaker 1: us rotated out during the snow season tuk breaks, went
[2:43] Speaker 1: home let the off season crew handle things. But Ezekiel
[2:47] Speaker 1: stayed through all of it, year after year. Supposedly he'd
[2:53] Speaker 1: signed some agreement with the agency to maintain permanent watch.
[2:58] Speaker 1: I'd only spoken to him twice. Both times were uncomfortable.
[3:03] Speaker 1: The first time I passed him on the ridge while
[3:05] Speaker 1: heading toward Tower six, I didn't say anything to him,
[3:10] Speaker 1: and I felt bad about it, But Logan had told
[3:13] Speaker 1: me so much creepy stuff about Ezekiel that I almost
[3:16] Speaker 1: didn't even want to speak to him. He didn't say
[3:20] Speaker 1: anything either until I was nearly past and asked me
[3:24] Speaker 1: if i'd seen anything strange on my way. I said
[3:27] Speaker 1: I hadn't. Then he just looked away and seemed to
[3:31] Speaker 1: be focused on something else entirely already. He wasn't warm,
[3:36] Speaker 1: far from it, and I didn't really like spending too
[3:40] Speaker 1: much time around him. My first winter in the tower
[3:45] Speaker 1: wasn't forced on me. I asked for it. The agency
[3:49] Speaker 1: gave me a pay cut, and in short I understood
[3:52] Speaker 1: the response time would be a joke if anything went wrong,
[3:56] Speaker 1: but I signed off anyway. I was starting to I
[4:00] Speaker 1: really liked this job. One Slogan cleared out, the ridge
[4:05] Speaker 1: went dead quiet, his tower light stopped flickering across the
[4:09] Speaker 1: tree line. In the evenings that left me and Ezekiel,
[4:16] Speaker 1: I didn't think about it much. I just focused on
[4:19] Speaker 1: the scenery. The forest itself had no straight edges. It
[4:24] Speaker 1: was hills and valleys stitched together by frozen creeks. Snow
[4:29] Speaker 1: blanketed the evergreens early that year. Most of the smaller
[4:33] Speaker 1: trees had dropped their leaves already, and the taller one
[4:37] Speaker 1: stood out black against the white. Wind carved up the
[4:41] Speaker 1: snow into low spines that looked like frozen wakes, as
[4:45] Speaker 1: if something had swung through the powder and disappeared. I
[4:50] Speaker 1: was out near the edge of my patrol line when
[4:53] Speaker 1: I saw it. The light had shifted into that flat
[4:58] Speaker 1: winter amber that shadows long and deceptive. I'd been inspecting
[5:03] Speaker 1: some of the brush piles left behind by the firebreak cruise.
[5:07] Speaker 1: The wind was quiet and the trees barely moved. Then
[5:13] Speaker 1: a break in the whiteness. It was too far off
[5:17] Speaker 1: to see clearly, but it looked like a large deer limping.
[5:22] Speaker 1: I don't mean walking unevenly, I mean dragging itself forward
[5:27] Speaker 1: in slow, holding burst, like one of its legs didn't
[5:30] Speaker 1: want to follow. My first instinct was the stayput. We're
[5:36] Speaker 1: told not to interfere with wild life. If an animal dies,
[5:40] Speaker 1: it dies, we aren't rescue. But I hadn't been out
[5:45] Speaker 1: here long enough to be numb about animals suffering. I
[5:49] Speaker 1: stood there for a minute, staring across the slope. The
[5:54] Speaker 1: sky overhead was clear, visibility wasn't bad. I could see
[5:59] Speaker 1: the shapes of the tree for a few hundred yards
[6:01] Speaker 1: before they disappeared behind a ridge. The animal had crossed
[6:06] Speaker 1: into a shallow trench and left the trail behind it,
[6:10] Speaker 1: a broken red line bleeding into the snow. I figured
[6:15] Speaker 1: I could follow it for a bit and see if
[6:17] Speaker 1: I could help us somehow. I wasn't even sure how,
[6:21] Speaker 1: but I knew it did stare my mind. If not,
[6:25] Speaker 1: I could at least make sure I didn't go down
[6:27] Speaker 1: in some ditch where nothing would find it until spring.
[6:32] Speaker 1: I checked my belt, my radio was on, my coat
[6:35] Speaker 1: was zipped tight. I still had enough daylight to get
[6:39] Speaker 1: back if I moved quick. I started walking. The snow
[6:45] Speaker 1: had only started falling the night before, so it was
[6:49] Speaker 1: easy to see the fresh marks for the tracks were off.
[6:54] Speaker 1: I've seen Dear Prince plenty of times, and these didn't match.
[7:00] Speaker 1: They were larger, for one thing, and they weren't symmetrical.
[7:04] Speaker 1: The spacing between them seemed wrong, longer than a deer
[7:08] Speaker 1: should have been able to manage with a limp. I
[7:11] Speaker 1: stopped to examine them, several times, crouching down to touch
[7:15] Speaker 1: the edges. Some of them looked melted around the sides,
[7:20] Speaker 1: as if the heat had softened the snow when they formed.
[7:24] Speaker 1: An injury, maybe a birth defect. I kept moving forward.
[7:31] Speaker 1: The blood trail dipped into a shallow drainage basin where
[7:35] Speaker 1: the trees thinned out. I followed it between clumps of
[7:38] Speaker 1: dead brush and saplings half buried under snow drifts. The
[7:43] Speaker 1: wind began to shift while I walked. I felt it
[7:48] Speaker 1: before I heard it, sharp, low, funneling down the slope
[7:54] Speaker 1: like something alive. The clouds hadn't warned me. The sky
[7:58] Speaker 1: had stayed open and glassy above the tree tops, but
[8:02] Speaker 1: within seconds the snow came, driving in sideways, fine and fast.
[8:09] Speaker 1: The shift was absolute. One moment I could still see
[8:13] Speaker 1: the trees standing in soft ranks ahead of me. Then
[8:17] Speaker 1: without build up, they disappeared. Wind slammed through the trees
[8:23] Speaker 1: and pulled the temperature down so fast my fingers ate
[8:26] Speaker 1: through the gloves. I stopped walking, turned a slow circle.
[8:32] Speaker 1: Everything I'd used to orient myself, tree formations, ridge lines,
[8:37] Speaker 1: even the slope under my feet vanished beneath a layer
[8:41] Speaker 1: of rushing white I squinted through the sudden torrent. The
[8:46] Speaker 1: trail had disappeared so hard everything else. I looked behind me,
[8:54] Speaker 1: where my bootprints had been only second to go. There
[8:57] Speaker 1: was nothing the snow. I had sealed them up, as
[9:01] Speaker 1: if I'd never walked there at all. My first thoughts
[9:05] Speaker 1: was the find higher ground. I turned around and took
[9:09] Speaker 1: two steps, then stopped again. I couldn't see anything I recognized.
[9:16] Speaker 1: Even the sound of my own steps felt swallowed by
[9:18] Speaker 1: the wind. It wasn't that I couldn't tell which direction
[9:22] Speaker 1: I had come from. I had no idea which direction
[9:26] Speaker 1: anything was anymore. I reached for my radio and keyed
[9:30] Speaker 1: it Tower nine to anyone on frequency, come in nothing, repeat,
[9:38] Speaker 1: this is Tower nine. Whiteout conditions need triangulation or direction.
[9:43] Speaker 1: Assist anyone reading this silence. I lowered the radio. I
[9:51] Speaker 1: tried to listen past the storm to find some auditory
[9:55] Speaker 1: landmark that might give me a clue. Still, there was
[9:59] Speaker 1: an nothing except wind tearing across the snow and the
[10:03] Speaker 1: occasional snap of overburdened branches breaking underweight. I started walking again.
[10:10] Speaker 1: I kept my bearings tight, using small trees as markers,
[10:14] Speaker 1: and moving slowly, hoping to recognize some formation or shape
[10:19] Speaker 1: that would confirm I was looping back toward familiar territory.
[10:24] Speaker 1: I paused again and took a long breath. My breath
[10:27] Speaker 1: bugged up the inside of my hood. I adjusted the
[10:31] Speaker 1: draw string, tried to calm the pounding in my chest.
[10:35] Speaker 1: Getting lost out here wasn't new. Every ranger did it,
[10:39] Speaker 1: at least once. I kept walking. Minutes passed, I couldn't
[10:45] Speaker 1: tell how many. Then I saw something on the ground ahead.
[10:52] Speaker 1: It was the deer, or what had looked like one.
[10:56] Speaker 1: I approached slowly, expecting it to jolt up, the way
[11:00] Speaker 1: wounded deer sometimes do when you get too close. But
[11:04] Speaker 1: it stayed still, half buried in the snow, ribs rising
[11:09] Speaker 1: in a sharp curve. One hind leg twisted off to
[11:12] Speaker 1: the side at an unnatural angle. The closer I got,
[11:17] Speaker 1: the less it made sense. I stopped ten feet away
[11:23] Speaker 1: and stared. Its head was all wrong. At first glance,
[11:29] Speaker 1: it resembled a deer skull, long and narrow, with patches
[11:33] Speaker 1: of fur frozen stiff across it, But the face and
[11:37] Speaker 1: lips thin, cracked lips stretched back over teeth, almost human.
[11:44] Speaker 1: Its neck bent upward in a way no animal spine
[11:46] Speaker 1: should have allowed antlers or something like them, jotted out
[11:51] Speaker 1: in short knobs from either side of its skull, but
[11:55] Speaker 1: they had branching ends that looked almost sculted. Its torso
[12:00] Speaker 1: heaved slow and unsteady, and I realized it was still breathing.
[12:07] Speaker 1: I took one step back, then another. My boots sank
[12:12] Speaker 1: into the snow. I tried not to make noise. Its
[12:16] Speaker 1: eye turned toward me, singular, strikingly human, and its body convulsed.
[12:24] Speaker 1: A pause shot forward from beneath its torso. Not a hoof,
[12:29] Speaker 1: not a deer leg. A bear's limb, thick and matted
[12:33] Speaker 1: with fur, punched into the snow and dragged the rest
[12:37] Speaker 1: of the body forward As it rose. It stood half upright,
[12:42] Speaker 1: something between a man and a beast. Then it lunged.
[12:51] Speaker 1: I dropped my radio and fell sideways into the snow.
[12:54] Speaker 1: Its claws grazed the sleeve on my jacket, tearing the
[12:58] Speaker 1: fabric but missing the flesh. I rolled backward and kicked
[13:02] Speaker 1: at its ribs, but its weight bore down fast. It snarled,
[13:08] Speaker 1: wet breath blasted against my neck. The smell made me gag.
[13:13] Speaker 1: I noticed then a massive bleeding gash on its side. Quickly,
[13:19] Speaker 1: I grabbed a branch off the ground, snapping it from
[13:21] Speaker 1: the ice, I drove it into the thing's injury. It
[13:26] Speaker 1: made a deep choking noise and reeled back, landing hard.
[13:32] Speaker 1: I scrambled to my feet and ran. I pushed through
[13:37] Speaker 1: snow drift and tree trunks, branches tearing at my clothes,
[13:40] Speaker 1: breath heaving through my throat. My legs went numb from
[13:44] Speaker 1: the cold, but I didn't stop. I ran until my
[13:49] Speaker 1: lungs burned and the wind was a wall against my chest.
[13:54] Speaker 1: I didn't even realize where I was until I saw
[13:57] Speaker 1: the structure through the white, thin metal legs extended upward
[14:01] Speaker 1: into the mist, too straight to be natural. I recognized
[14:06] Speaker 1: the silhouette immediately a tower, Ezekiel's Tower. Somehow I had
[14:14] Speaker 1: looped west. I didn't waste time. I found the staircase
[14:20] Speaker 1: and started up, my boots barely gripping the ice slicked metal.
[14:25] Speaker 1: I knocked when I reached the top. No answer. I
[14:29] Speaker 1: knocked again, harder, this time nothing. I pushed the door open.
[14:36] Speaker 1: The warmth hit me first. A weak orange glow flickered
[14:40] Speaker 1: from an old stove in the corner. The windows were
[14:44] Speaker 1: covered in thick, mismatched curtains, blankets, and furs were piled
[14:49] Speaker 1: around the walls. I stepped inside and closed the door
[14:53] Speaker 1: behind me, my fingers trembling. I didn't realize how cold
[14:58] Speaker 1: i'd been until the hid my skin. Then I looked around.
[15:08] Speaker 1: I had never been inside his Equals tower. I didn't
[15:11] Speaker 1: know anyone who had. The space was packed with things
[15:15] Speaker 1: that didn't belong in a lockout. Wall to wall, hooks
[15:19] Speaker 1: and shelves cradled with weapons. Rifles lined the east wall.
[15:24] Speaker 1: Handguns rested in open crates. Ornamental carvings marked every one
[15:29] Speaker 1: of them. Runs letters I couldn't read, Lines and circles
[15:34] Speaker 1: scratched into the stalks and barrels. Several of the bullets
[15:37] Speaker 1: were laid out across the table under the window, their
[15:41] Speaker 1: surfaces glinting like silver or some other precious metal. Dream
[15:45] Speaker 1: catchers hung in the corners. Animal schools rested on ledges,
[15:50] Speaker 1: each of the forehead marked with the red wax or ink.
[15:55] Speaker 1: I packed away from the table and sank into a
[15:57] Speaker 1: low chair near the stove, trying to catch my breath.
[16:01] Speaker 1: My chest st ached. I leaned forward, resting my arms
[16:05] Speaker 1: on my knees. Then I heard the stairs creaking outside.
[16:11] Speaker 1: I immediately thought of that thing. My first thought was
[16:15] Speaker 1: that it had tracked me down, and now I had
[16:18] Speaker 1: nowhere to actually go. I raced toward the wall for
[16:21] Speaker 1: one of Ezekiel's guns when the door opened behind me
[16:26] Speaker 1: and Ezekiel stepped inside. His coat was dusted in snow,
[16:31] Speaker 1: his gloves were off. He shut the door and looked
[16:34] Speaker 1: over at me with no surprise. I looked at him, dumbfounded,
[16:41] Speaker 1: my hands resting on one of the rifles still attached
[16:44] Speaker 1: to the wall. Ah Yah, Ezekiel, you won't believe me,
[16:50] Speaker 1: but you saw it, he asked. I opened my mouth,
[16:55] Speaker 1: trying to explain, but he cut me off before I
[16:58] Speaker 1: could finish. Was it injured? I nodded, Good, means the
[17:06] Speaker 1: trap worked, he responded, after a brief silence. Well, he said,
[17:13] Speaker 1: at last, since he already saw it. He turned and
[17:17] Speaker 1: met my eyes. The corner of his mouth twitched in
[17:21] Speaker 1: what might have been a grimace. It can't be helped. Now.
[17:26] Speaker 1: He walked across the room with the slow certainty of
[17:29] Speaker 1: a man who knew where every board creaked. He moved
[17:33] Speaker 1: past the stove, past the table with a bullet, and
[17:36] Speaker 1: stopped in front of a tall shelf near the corner.
[17:40] Speaker 1: His hands hovered momentarily, then landed on a thick, water
[17:44] Speaker 1: warped book, bound in leather and marked in strange faded lettering.
[17:50] Speaker 1: He pulled it free, thumbed through the pages, and found
[17:54] Speaker 1: what he was looking for. I am sorry, though, he said,
[18:00] Speaker 1: locking up. I hadn't let one slip in in over
[18:03] Speaker 1: a decade. Maybe I am getting old. The pages made
[18:09] Speaker 1: a dry sound as he turned them. It's smart, Azekil, muttered,
[18:14] Speaker 1: eyes scanning the page, real smart. See. Some people think
[18:19] Speaker 1: it's three creatures sewn together. Somethink it's one thing splitting
[18:24] Speaker 1: apart into three. He turned the book toward me. The
[18:29] Speaker 1: illustration on the page looked too exact to be guesswork antlers,
[18:34] Speaker 1: human faces, claws from something simian or bare like. Its
[18:39] Speaker 1: body was sketched mid motion. He looked at the page,
[18:44] Speaker 1: then back at me. You're lucky it was wounded, would
[18:49] Speaker 1: have killed you otherwise. He snapped the book shot and
[18:54] Speaker 1: slid it under his arm. Then he crossed to another shelf.
[18:59] Speaker 1: His hands moved quickly, this time grabbing a flat, circular
[19:03] Speaker 1: object wrapped in cloth. He unwrapped it and held it
[19:07] Speaker 1: out to me. And looked like a mirror, but the
[19:11] Speaker 1: surface was darker than glass, more reflective than metal. The
[19:16] Speaker 1: edges were edgeless cymbals, and the reflection it gave back
[19:20] Speaker 1: felt delayed. Take it, he said. I didn't move. He
[19:27] Speaker 1: held it closer. You're coming with me. You know where
[19:32] Speaker 1: it was last. I need you to take me there.
[19:37] Speaker 1: I stared at the mirror, then at him. You think
[19:41] Speaker 1: I want company. I'd rather do this alone. One man
[19:45] Speaker 1: would have trouble taking it down. Two You should make
[19:48] Speaker 1: it manageable. He let go of the object. I caught it,
[19:53] Speaker 1: cradled the weight of it in both hands. You're part
[19:58] Speaker 1: of this now, whether you want to be or not.
[20:03] Speaker 1: After that, Ezekiel briefly explained the plan to me. I
[20:08] Speaker 1: was to be a distraction, since I held its scent
[20:11] Speaker 1: and it saw me as its prey. I was to
[20:14] Speaker 1: point the mirror toward it, leaving it frozen just long
[20:17] Speaker 1: enough for Ezekiel to take it out. Ezekiel put his
[20:22] Speaker 1: coat back on and grabbed a large tool where looked
[20:25] Speaker 1: to be a crossbow from the wall and motion for
[20:28] Speaker 1: me to move in front of him. I obeyed. The
[20:37] Speaker 1: snow had slowed, though only slightly, by the time we
[20:41] Speaker 1: set out, the wind still bit through the treetops, and
[20:45] Speaker 1: the sky hung low above us, dull and thick, but
[20:49] Speaker 1: it wasn't a full white out anymore. We moved downhill,
[20:53] Speaker 1: cutting through what was left of my trail. Ezekiel walked
[20:57] Speaker 1: with purpose, one hand gripped his crossbow, the other steadying
[21:02] Speaker 1: himself along exposed trunks and roots. He didn't speak much
[21:07] Speaker 1: except a nod when we hit the rain he recognized
[21:09] Speaker 1: from my descriptions. I stayed in front of him, scanning
[21:14] Speaker 1: every branch, every path of snow that looked uneven. I
[21:19] Speaker 1: wasn't sure if the thing had kept moving after it
[21:21] Speaker 1: attacked me. I wasn't even sure it could bleed out.
[21:26] Speaker 1: That was the problem. I didn't know anything about what
[21:30] Speaker 1: it was or how we were going to take it out.
[21:35] Speaker 1: We found the place after thirty minutes of trudging. It
[21:39] Speaker 1: wasn't far from the tower. I'd run further than I
[21:42] Speaker 1: realized during the panic. The snow in the clearing was
[21:46] Speaker 1: broken and stained, Dark veins crisscrossing through it in wild spirals.
[21:52] Speaker 1: Ezekiel moved to the center, crouched down, and studded the ground.
[21:58] Speaker 1: He shifted the snow gently brushing away the surface to
[22:02] Speaker 1: expose the soil beneath. I keet, thinking about whether I
[22:07] Speaker 1: could actually do this, whether I'd freeze if it showed
[22:10] Speaker 1: up again, whether he'd see it in my face. He
[22:15] Speaker 1: looked over his shoulder at me. Keep your eyes open.
[22:22] Speaker 1: It hit us without warning. One second we were standing
[22:28] Speaker 1: in silence, and the next the trees exploded into motion.
[22:33] Speaker 1: Snow burst upward as a massive form barreled out from
[22:37] Speaker 1: the gully to our right. Ezekiel spun, raising his weapon,
[22:42] Speaker 1: but the thing was faster. It slammed into him before
[22:46] Speaker 1: he could aim. The crossbow flew from his grip and
[22:50] Speaker 1: skid it into the trees. Ezekiel hit the ground hard.
[22:56] Speaker 1: I froze for a moment. The creature loomed over him.
[22:59] Speaker 1: It shake wwarping in place where muscle met hide, one
[23:03] Speaker 1: shoulder twitching as if it had too many limbs packed
[23:06] Speaker 1: into too little space. Its breathing was aggressive. It was angry,
[23:13] Speaker 1: hiss jaws stretched open as it stared at Ezekiel. Its
[23:18] Speaker 1: eyes were set wide across his head, mismatched in shape
[23:21] Speaker 1: and size. Ezekiel tried to reach for something at his belt,
[23:26] Speaker 1: but the beast slammed its elbow across his chest. I
[23:30] Speaker 1: heard something crack. I ran toward them and kicked hard
[23:35] Speaker 1: into the thing's exposed flank. My boot landed near the
[23:38] Speaker 1: wound i'd seen earlier. The creature shrieked and stumbled sideways.
[23:43] Speaker 1: I fell back and grabbed Ezekiel by the arm, but
[23:47] Speaker 1: he was too heavy to move. His legs didn't respond.
[23:51] Speaker 1: His mouth opened, but no sound came out. His hand
[23:55] Speaker 1: finally twitched and pointed towards the crosspo The creature's body
[24:03] Speaker 1: shifted as it rose, bones stretched, furst slowed off in clumps,
[24:08] Speaker 1: revealing muscle underneath that pulsed visibly. It looked at me,
[24:14] Speaker 1: then at Ezekiel. It growled a low noise that vibrated
[24:19] Speaker 1: in my chest. Move his ekil managed the painful shout.
[24:25] Speaker 1: I packed up, raised the mirror and held it in
[24:28] Speaker 1: both hands. I had forgotten I still had it until then.
[24:33] Speaker 1: The creature looked directly into it and stopped moving. Its
[24:40] Speaker 1: head tilted, its limbs slackened. The snarl faded from its face.
[24:46] Speaker 1: For a moment, it simply stood there, frozen. I lowered
[24:52] Speaker 1: the mirror and dove with the crossbow, my hand wrapped
[24:55] Speaker 1: around the grip fingers clumsy with adrenaline, I turned back
[25:00] Speaker 1: toward it and brought the weapon up. I hadn't fired
[25:05] Speaker 1: one in years. The trigger felt unfamiliar, the bolt was
[25:09] Speaker 1: already loaded. I aimed, then hesitated. I only had one chance,
[25:18] Speaker 1: and if I missed, it blinked and the spell broke.
[25:24] Speaker 1: The creature launched forward again, this time angling toward Ezekiel.
[25:29] Speaker 1: His hands went up weakly to defend himself. I quickly
[25:34] Speaker 1: inhaled and pulled the trigger. The bolt sank deep into
[25:39] Speaker 1: the creature's ribs. As it twisted mid motion. It shrieked
[25:45] Speaker 1: a horrible noise that shifted in pitch halfway through, as
[25:48] Speaker 1: if several voices were laid beneath it. Its body staggered,
[25:53] Speaker 1: then shimmered. The edges of it began to thin, stretching
[25:57] Speaker 1: outward like smoke caught in a reverse wind. It disappeared.
[26:04] Speaker 1: The clearing was silent again. I looked over as Egil
[26:09] Speaker 1: was slumped against the trunk, his coat soaked through with blood.
[26:14] Speaker 1: He gave a dry horse chuckle and shook his head
[26:20] Speaker 1: not bad. He coughed. It was at that moment that
[26:25] Speaker 1: I wondered if e Egil would ever need help, again
[26:29] Speaker 1: after all, he was getting old.

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