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“The dead do not walk, but they certainly linger,” the elders used to whisper, their scales shifting into a cautionary, muddy brown.
In the heart of the RainWing village, nestled among the iridescent canopies and the perpetual humidity of the rainforest, there sat an anomaly of stone and moss: an ancient well. It was a relic of a forgotten epoch, hewn from rock during the era when Darkstalker’s shadow first stretched across the continent. The current generation of RainWings viewed it not as a source of water, but as a scar on the landscape, a place where the veil between the living and the ancestral was dangerously thin.
Moon had grown up on the periphery of these superstitions. She was a dragon of logic and quiet observation, often finding the theatrics of the village elders more amusing than alarming. One particular elder, a dragon whose scales had faded to a pale, dusty lavender with age, had once gripped Moon’s forearm with a surprising strength, his voice dropping to a raspy hiss: “If you find yourself walking home when the moon is at its zenith, walk with purpose. No matter what voice calls your name, no matter what touch brushes your wing, never look back. To look back is to invite the drowned to follow you home.”
Moon had dismissed it as a typical bedtime fable, designed to keep dragonets from wandering into the jungle after dark. But the jungle has a way of proving the skeptics wrong.
The incident occurred on a night where the humidity was so oppressive it felt like walking through warm soup. Moon had spent the evening at a friends home, immersed in a spirited debate about the migration patterns of the rainforest’s avian life. By the time she realized the hour, the moons had climbed to their highest point, casting a spectral, silver pallor over the foliage. It was one o'clock in the morning.
The journey back to her dwelling was a solitary trek through a landscape transformed. In the daylight, the forest was a symphony of color; at midnight, it was a claustrophobic labyrinth of ink and charcoal. Moon carried a small candle, but its flickering amber glow was an insignificant weapon against the encroaching fog. The mist didn't just drift; it clung to her scales, heavy and damp, smelling of crushed ferns and old loam.
As she drew level with the abandoned well, the silence of the jungle became absolute. The usual cacophony of nocturnal insects and distant primate calls vanished, replaced by a vacuum of sound. Then, a noise shattered the stillness.
Plop.
It was the distinct, heavy sound of a stone, or perhaps something organic—dropping into deep, stagnant water.
Moon flinched, her ruff bristling. A primal instinct, buried deep in her NightWing senses, screamed at her to flee. Remembering the elder’s warning, she didn't turn. She didn't even glance toward the well. She tightened her grip on her candle and quickened her pace, her talons clicking rhythmically against the damp earth.
Then came the talonsteps.
They were not the heavy, rhythmic thuds of a dragon. Instead, they were soft, wet, and horribly rhythmic. It was the sound of something saturated, something that had spent an eternity submerged in silt, now walking with bare talons across dry dirt.
Squelch... squelch... squelch…
The sound was erratic, accelerating. Every time Moon increased her speed, the squelching grew faster, as if the entity behind her were mirroring her desperation. The distance between them shrank until Moon could feel a sudden, localized drop in temperature. A frigid draft of air hit the back of her neck, carrying with it the unmistakable, cloying stench of river rot, the smell of a carcass that had been picked clean by fish and left to bloat in the current.
Then, a voice drifted into her ear. It was a whisper, wet and bubbling, as if the speaker’s lungs were filled with brackish water.
“Moon… wait for me. It’s so cold… so very cold…”
Moon’s heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird. She knew that voice. It wasn't just a familiar tone; it was a precise, haunting match for a NightWing who had perished years ago—a dragon whose death had been a tragedy of the past, yet whose voice now sounded as if it were inches from her scales.
Terror surged through her, a cold current that threatened to paralyze her limbs. Every fiber of her being demanded she turn around, to offer comfort or curiosity to the voice. Instead, she gritted her teeth, squeezing her green eyes shut to shut out the oppressive darkness. She refused to look. She refused to acknowledge the presence.
“Clearsight, guide me,” she whispered, a frantic prayer to the prophet of old, her voice trembling. “Please, let me reach the door.”
The entity behind her didn't stop. As Moon bolted toward the outskirts of the village, the breathing grew heavier, a wet, rattling sound that echoed her own panicked gasps. The voice began to beg, transitioning from a whisper to a desperate, gurgling plea, urging her to turn back, to look at the thing that had crawled out of the well.
With a final, desperate surge of strength, Moon burst onto the wooden porch of her tree-house. She scrambled inside, the heavy wooden door slamming shut with a crash that echoed through the canopy. She threw the bolt into place, leaning her back against the wood, gasping for air.
Outside, the jungle fell instantly, terrifyingly silent.
Moon didn't sleep. She stayed huddled in the center of her room, the candle burning down to a nub of wax, listening to the wind howl through the leaves.
The next morning, when the first golden rays of the sun pierced through the canopy, Moon stepped outside to breathe the fresh morning air. She stopped abruptly, her gaze falling upon the door handle.
There, etched into the polished wood, was a single, dark, wet talon print. It was unnaturally long, the claws twisted at impossible angles, the claws elongated and jagged. It was a mark of something that had tried to enter, a reminder that while she had not looked back, the thing from the well had certainly seen her.