Sharp splinters of light cut through the night, piercing the farmer’s window like swords of holy justice.

Hin, still as a rock in a distant shadow, listened.

They were out tonight.

He nervously fingered the hard metal of the rifle laying across his knees. Did the others feel like this? Merl, Gudan, Shalr?

Was that…?

Noises, night noises, deafening in the silence.

Many friends had been lost to these killers, families vanished in a swath of blood. No survivors to say what the predators looked like.

The night fell silent, startling Hin from his thoughts. He listened, looking this way and that, through the branches of the bush he hid within. The family within the farm were perfect bait, the trap was being sprung.

Hin tensed, quickly raised his gun as a form stepped before him. He fired.

The thing stumbled towards him, fell. One clawed hand grasping his knee. The woman bleeding from the chest, with teeth like a tigers, looked at him.

“Please,” she begged. “I don’t want to die.”