The Hunters Arrive

The quiet hum of Oakhaven, a sound Elias had slowly begun to equate with peace, was shattered before dawn. It wasn’t the shrill cry of a fire alarm or the rumble of an approaching storm, but a subtle shift, a prickle of unease that snaked through the town’s slumbering consciousness. Elias felt it first, a tremor in his bones, a sudden, icy clarity that cut through the lingering fog of his amnesia. Sarah, stirred by his sudden stillness beside her in the small attic room they’d claimed as their own, sat up, her eyes wide.

“What is it?” she whispered, her voice laced with a fear she rarely allowed to surface.

Elias didn’t answer immediately. He was already at the grimy window, peering through the condensation-streaked glass at the edge of town. The familiar, sleepy silhouette of Oakhaven was disturbed. Small, dark shapes, like predatory insects, were scuttling through the pre-dawn gloom. Headlights, sharp and alien, cut through the mist, painting stark white paths across the dew-kissed fields. They weren’t the gentle beams of local farmers heading out early; these were purposeful, aggressive.