Gaze Upon Death

Prologue

"Hello? Is anyone there?"

The shrill voice of a young girl cried out, and though her voice rang out through the thick expanse of the forest, there was an emptiness that answered her, and she knew that no one heard her.

The girl started to feel herself shake, but not because she fel cold. In fact, it was neither hot nor cold, neither light nor dark. She was not shaking because of tiredness or hunger, either, even if she had been walking for what seemed like hours without eating a thing. She was shaking now, simply because she felt scared.

She wasn't new to feeling scared, and as she was told countless times before, she paused and took a deep breath before she continued walking, weaving through the dense trees, hoping to see anyone at all at her next turn. But there was no one, and she knew she was alone.

Little did she know, she was wrong.

For only had she looked up, then she would have seen the figure of a fellow human sitting on a sturdy branch. She would have seen how their lips were pursed, and how she stayed as still as a statue. She would have seen how their eyes would shift its gaze from her to somewhere just beyond the trees, where a faint light shone through...