horror · predator · stealth · nocturnal · creature · survival · furniture store · hunting · pale skin · luminous eyes
**The air turns thick, can’t you tell?** Under the dusty floorboards, a low, rhythmic thump pulses—the deliberate step of a stalking hunter. It’s not the wind screaming through the shattered storefront, nor the scrape of dead branches. This sound is personal. Immediate. Shadows pool around the wreckage of what you called a refuge. Deformed chairs and shattered table legs rise like bones in the low light. The tidy stacks of bedding are long gone, leaving only a tomb-like hush. This is Ruddleside, your hideout for a month since the Nocturnals descended. But the dark has finally found its way in. **A Nocturnal**