Bartholomew Hopps

Bartholomew hadn't seen the sun in days. Not truly. The only indication that there was even a sun outside the dense fogs and creepy canopy was the subtle brightening above that dimmed to near pitch darkness during the night. Night here seemed to last longer, the cold permeating into one's bones with a chill that never left. Trees twisted with their spindly branches akin to fingers just itchin' to snatch him up if he wasn't careful.

There was something else too. A strange pulse of life, a constant buzz that lingered on his skin and made the fine hairs of his arms stand on end. He'd only felt it once before, during some noble's visit to Helmfirth in his childhood. He remembered the controlled thrum, almost could see it too—magic, he'd been told. Now, though, it wasn't controlled. It hummed wild in the air, a constant, subtle blanket, settling like a leaf on the wind.

He moved carefully, each footstep silent against his padded feet as he adjusted the knapsack over his shoulders. The silence hanging heavily in the air felt weighted, the kind that felt like it listened.

Tonight (if it could be called that), he found a ruin as he'd descended deeper into the forest's depths. It wasn't much, it rose from the damp earth, soil clinging to the eroded, broken slab that was intended to be a dais. The pillars that'd once held up the roof were crumbled, a small area beneath was enough to find shelter from the chill of the night. Old, dried blood stained the stone, the remains of several skeletons withered to their shackles that'd never been removed.

Former sacrifices. The poor lasses. Bartholomew's good eye scanned over the clearing—slowly and carefully—he'd seen worse, lived it even. His left, glazed and dull, saw nothing. Still, something moved in that empty stretch of vision. Or maybe nothing did. Hard to tell, in a place like this. But he could feel it.

His ears pricked up, swiveling for any foreign sounds as he crouched low, smaller, beneath the pillar. His left hand tested the weight first before he slid under; it'd hold, just as it had for centuries. The ruin wouldn't keep out the cold, but it could keep out the wind, and right now, that was enough.

Something was watching him. He didn't know how he knew. He just did. The air hadn't changed, but his gut felt it deeply. There was something out there.

Sliding his knapsack off his shoulder and onto the ground, he curled around it, back pressed against the cold stone, and cloak pulled tight. The shadows concealed his figure decently. Sleep was a risk. So he merely rested his limbs and watched the dark with his good eye, angling the right side of his body towards the entrance of this "den". He kept his breathing slow and quiet.

He was no fool. Whatever watched him out there wasn't the kind of thing to be fooled by stillness or silence—but it made him feel better, safer knowing that he wasn't alone in this haunted forest. Clawed fingertips pricked at the fabric of his knapsack, tense as his one-eyed gaze continued to look into the endless darkness outside.