Chapter 6: Hunger's Grip
POV: Adam Carter
The forest had gone unnaturally quiet, as if every living thing with any sense had fled deeper into the wilderness. Adam's involuntary growls were the only sound breaking the silence, and each rumbling noise from his throat made Sam's trigger finger twitch a little more obviously.
They'd been following the wendigo's trail for twenty minutes, moving through pines that grew so thick the moonlight barely penetrated to the forest floor. Adam's enhanced senses painted the darkness in shades of scent and sound—the wendigo had passed this way recently, its hunger leaving a psychic stench that made his stomach clench with sympathetic starvation.
Elena held up a fist, bringing their small group to a halt. Through the trees ahead, they could see the warm glow of the campground. Voices carried on the night air, the casual laughter of people who had no idea something was stalking them.
"How many?" Dean whispered.
Elena consulted her scope. "Maybe a dozen. Families, mostly. And—" Her voice went tight. "There's someone out there alone. Young woman, walking toward the tree line."
Adam's enhanced vision locked onto the figure moving away from the safety of the campfires. She was maybe twenty-five, dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, wearing hiking boots and a jacket that screamed city girl trying to commune with nature. Sarah Kline, according to the ID she'd probably left in her tent, along with bear spray that wouldn't do her any good against what was hunting her.
The wendigo was close now. Adam could smell it, feel its presence like a cold weight pressing against his consciousness. It was watching the woman from the shadows, waiting for her to get far enough from the camp that no one would hear her scream.
"We have to warn her," Sam said, already moving.
But Adam was faster.
His system-enhanced reflexes kicked in without conscious thought, dropping his mental energy from 70% to 50% as speed flooded his muscles. He sprinted toward the campground, covering ground with the fluid grace of something born to hunt, his borrowed instincts screaming at him to intercept the prey before—
The hunger hit him like a sledgehammer to the skull.
Suddenly Adam wasn't thinking about saving Sarah Kline. He was thinking about how easy it would be to catch her, how satisfying the chase would be, how good she would taste when the hunt finally ended. The wendigo's instincts crashed over his own thoughts like a tidal wave, drowning his humanity in pure, predatory hunger.
Sarah heard him coming and turned, her face lighting up with relief. "Oh, thank God. I heard something in the woods and—"
Adam stopped ten feet away from her, his muscles coiled for a pounce, his mouth flooding with saliva. For one terrifying moment, he looked at Sarah Kline and saw nothing but meat.
The wendigo struck from the opposite direction.
It emerged from the shadows between the trees like a nightmare given form—eight feet of pale, emaciated flesh stretched over a frame that had once been human. Its fingers had elongated into claws that could punch through steel, and its mouth was full of teeth designed for tearing flesh from bone. When it moved, it was faster than anything that size should be able to move, a blur of hunger and malice that covered the distance to Sarah in less than a heartbeat.
Adam was still frozen by the wendigo's instincts flooding his system when the creature's claws raked across Sarah's shoulder, opening three parallel gashes that immediately began bleeding through her jacket. Her scream shattered the night, and suddenly the forest exploded with sound—campers shouting, people running, the distant wail of someone calling 911.
Dean's flare gun boomed like thunder, painting the trees in hellish red light as the burning magnesium struck the wendigo center mass. The creature shrieked and stumbled backward, its pale flesh blistering where the flare had hit, but it didn't go down.
"Kid!" Dean's voice cut through Adam's paralysis. "Move!"
But Adam couldn't move. The wendigo's hunger was still coursing through his system, and part of him was actually disappointed that Dean had interrupted the hunt. The rational part of his mind was screaming in horror, but the borrowed instincts were stronger, whispering that Sarah's blood smelled delicious and wouldn't it be easier to just—
[Instincts aren't yours, kid.] [You just cost someone.]
The system's words hit him like a slap across the face. Adam blinked, the red haze of hunger clearing just enough for him to see what his hesitation had cost. Sarah was on the ground, bleeding from claw marks that went bone-deep, her face pale with shock and pain. Elena was beside her, pressing a field dressing to the wounds, but there was a lot of blood.
Too much blood.
"What the hell was that?" Sam's voice was raw with fury and disbelief. He was staring at Adam like he was looking at something that wore a human face but definitely wasn't human underneath. "You froze. You just stood there while that thing—"
Another flare lit the night as Dean reloaded and fired again, driving the wendigo back into the tree line. But they could all hear it moving through the forest, circling like a shark, waiting for another opportunity.
Adam's mental energy had dropped to 40%, and the hunger was still there, coiled in his stomach like a living thing. When he looked at Sarah's blood, his mouth watered. When he heard her rapid, frightened breathing, his muscles tensed for a chase.
The system imposed its punishment with surgical precision.
[Retribution: Feel phantom hunger for 24 hours.] [Try not to eat anyone.]
Adam doubled over as his stomach cramped with starvation that wasn't his own. The wendigo's hunger was now permanently grafted onto his consciousness, a constant gnawing need that made him look at every warm-blooded creature and wonder what they would taste like.
Elena finished bandaging Sarah's shoulder and looked up, her expression cold as winter stone. "She's stable, but she needs a hospital. These wounds are deep."
"I'll call for a medical evacuation," Sam said, already reaching for his phone. But his eyes never left Adam's face. "After we deal with our friend here."
Dean had the wendigo pinned down with alternating flare shots, but they were running low on ammunition. "Whatever you're planning, make it fast. This thing's not going to stay spooked forever."
Adam forced himself to his feet, fighting against the phantom hunger that made him want to follow his nose toward the scent of fresh blood. His borrowed instincts were screaming at him to finish what the wendigo had started, to claim the wounded prey, but he gritted his teeth and tried to think like a human being.
"It's old," he managed, his voice rough with suppressed growls. "Starving. It won't abandon a blood trail."
"Meaning?" Elena asked.
"Meaning it'll come back for her." Adam looked at Sarah, who was conscious but going into shock, her eyes wide and unfocused. "We can use that."
Sam's expression was pure disgust. "You want to use her as bait?"
"I want to save her." The words came out harsher than Adam intended, sharpened by the hunger clawing at his insides. "The wendigo won't stop hunting her. Not after it's tasted her blood. Our only choice is to kill it."
Dean nodded grimly. "Kid's right. These things don't give up once they've marked prey."
Another vision flashed through Adam's mind—blood-soaked snow, the satisfying crunch of bones between powerful jaws, the warm rush of feeding after so many years of starvation. For a moment, he wasn't sure if the memory belonged to him or the wendigo.
The distinction was getting harder to maintain.
[Achievement: "Hunger's Grip" – Survived the ambush.] [+10% Mental Energy.]
His gauge ticked up to 50%, but the boost did nothing to quiet the phantom hunger. If anything, having more energy just made the wendigo's instincts stronger, more insistent.
Elena was studying him with the intensity of someone trying to identify a new species of poisonous snake. "You froze back there. Right when we needed you to move."
"I know." Adam couldn't meet her eyes. "I'm sorry."
"Sorry doesn't fix claw marks," Sam said flatly. His suspicion had crystallized into something harder, more dangerous. "What's really wrong with you, Adam? And don't give me another bullshit answer about being nervous."
Before Adam could respond, his scar pulsed with sharp, sudden pain. Somewhere in the darkness beyond the flare light, the wendigo was moving again. Circling. Planning.
Hunting.
Adam's phantom hunger spiked in recognition, and he had to clench his fists to keep from growling at the scent of approaching predator.
[You're a liability, kid.] [Prove them wrong.]
In the distance, the wendigo's roar split the night—a sound that was equal parts rage and starvation, the cry of something that had been hungry for far too long.
It was coming back. And this time, Adam wasn't sure whose side his instincts would be on when it arrived.
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