place

All around were the tall slender white trees, bare and spaced apart, projecting fading shadows onto the moss covered ground. The sky above was a piercing blue, and away in the distance thick mysterious fog ran to escape the sunlight. An airy silence rang through the forest, protecting the strange creatures that lay beyond, unseen. The calm before the storm.

Suddenly, foot steps. A small group of people approached, heads down, eyes pinned on the path before them. And then, as though they had only just noticed their surroundings, heads began to raise and a feeling of tension arose. The clan stood deathly still, realizing their mistake only too late. Where the gentle moss had been before was now a deep dark hole, and the people fell through, the hole magically closed up before a unified scream could leave their lips.

It was as though the death of the people had lifted a curse. Across the forest, and from the mist beyond, the creatures began to appear. Tall, dark and strange, with long slender bodys that seemed to hover just above the ground like helicopters about to land.