It was a dark and stormy night.

Except it wasn’t that dark nor it was that stormy. It wasn’t even dusk, let alone being night. It was dawn, with the sun rising above the horizon of the forest in front of your cabin. That’s right, you lived in a cabin in your neighborhood, and it was lined up like any other house would be. Except for the fact that you didn’t really have neighbors to your sides in your neighborhood, just the ones in front of your cabin. 

It was a rather nice wood cabin though, reeking of old cut bark and the faint smell of grass. Your bloodline has been in this cabin here for generations, as your deceased father had inherited it from your grandfather, who had inherited it from their own grandfather, and so on. You are the only one that lives in this cabin because nobody else would want to live with you. That’s fine. You liked it here, and you would spend the rest of your life in this cabin, especially for the fact nobody else lived in or next to you. Just the houses in front of your home, but they don’t like you because it brings their property value down. You don’t mind. It’s lonely and you like it that way.

It would be nice to have some friends here sometimes.

Anyway, it was dawn, and you had woken up early. You are the only person that has woken up in your vicinity as of this time. That’s good. Nobody awake to behold a grudge against you and your cabin.

There is a problem that you have to fix in the back of your house. One of the power generators in the back of your log cabin broke, so you couldn’t turn on the lights in the bathroom when you woke up. Must be why you’re in such a hurry.

When you came over to tend to that, everything got dark. For a brief moment. Apparently, there was a solar eclipse that was being talked about on the news, but you didn’t hear about it because you didn’t have a TV to watch the news. Or any friends.

You went out back to tend the power generator to your cabin when you heard the loud cracking sound of a mangled stick coming from the inside of the forest. Your attention shifts over to the dark, blanketed abyss that the logged gateways open for you, luring you in. There is something in the forest and you know it. But you hear no more of it. You hold your ear up for a good while, but nothing.

Must be a squirrel, you suppose.

As you turn yourself back to maintaining the power, more snaps, crackles, and pops turn your gaze back to the forest. It is welcoming. You suppose. It would be a frankly ridiculous concept to just go alone into the forest without any reason why or whatsoever, so you try to tend to your own problems once more, but every time, it seems, that you shift your attention away from the depths of the forest, it tries desperately to beckon you again to come. It could be that whatever is in the forest is playing tricks on you, playing you around, bringing you to rage and executing such a stupid decision as to do what it wants you to do. Or maybe it’s just desperate for attention and crawls up into a little ball, shivering, when you actually give it the attention it wants but at the same time doesn’t want. Or maybe it’s all just a really annoying series of coincidences that just happen as soon as you turn away from it. Whatever it is, it’s pissing you off. Forget the lights in your bathroom, they can wait. Not for very long, though.

You finally decide to make your move, and step into the forest that awaits you. It is cold, cold like a broken fan to cool you in the summer heat. It is annoying, and you would rather just go back into the cabin, but you were stupid and decided to make the stupid decision to even entertain this idea at all. 

Minutes later and you come up against a tall creature. It is twice, maybe two and a half times your height, with pale, brittle skin and with so little meat on them you could see the bones, especially its rib cage poking out of it. The head of the lanky beast is what seems to be a deer skull, except for the fact that instead of large, gaping eye holes are tiny, beady eyes that swallow any light that comes inside. Just like the kind of beads you would stumble across the arts and crafts store. Wrapping around it is a large, thick mane, black like a black cat and fluffy like a faux fur scarf. In fact, you think it really is a faux fur scarf, just a really big one.

It seems sad, even though you cannot tell by its expressionless face. The beady eyes tell all, though you are not sure how. It picks up a half-broken branch from off the ground, just drooping down like a wilted flower.

So this was the thing in the woods that was bothering you. It was just really lonely. Maybe it needed friends. 

You take the broken branch. I guess a new cabin friend won’t hurt.