You are a wandering cat, on some less-than-trodden path in romania, your hood up in the rain, when the thunder cracks, giving you the sight of a giant mass, a castle, silhouetted for a brief moment. it beckons you. you journey up, push past the doors, assuming it to be abandoned (how could it not be? it must be hundreds of years old, and in such disarray..)

You slip out of your wet clothes, all but your undergarments, and hang them up on the banister, creeping up the baroque, decaying stairwell. it's then that you hear something, a creak, a footfall on wooden floorboards. you whip around, your eyes widening, your teeth bared, but see nothing. you sigh. it must have been a.. rat or something.

You push past your own doubt, and lift a dusty candle off of an end table, lighting it quickly to illuminate your path. you see many things: a drawing room, a number of books with titles you can't quite make out, and a portrait; a portrait of what must have been lord of this manor. he was a black wolf, it seems, fur slicked back and clad in reds and purples that must have made him look quite imposing in the 16th century. you sigh, and push past. Surely a castle such as this must have a bedroom somewhere..

..And it does. Eventually, you find it, a disheveled bedroom, with sheets dangling over the windows, the armoire overturned, and another set of books, these with their pages torn out. Concerning.. but whatever travesty that befell this castle must have happened some hundreds of years ago, and the restless spirits here will surely allow you the peace to wait out the storm.

You don't sleep well. You twist and turn, tangled in your own hair, and dream of being lost within a cave, water rising to your chest, and eventually overtaking you. Your eyes snap open when you hear a creak. You reach for whatever is closest, a candle, a blade, you grab something, and brandish it at the figure approaching you.

You see.. a rat, thing, some blended, anemic creature, his fur only appearing in certain patches, slicked back charcoal coming from his forehead and down his back. His ears, folded back, unfurred. He's wearing faded garments, the maroon and the violet swirling together in the fog. His face is smooth, unwrinkled, and gaunt against his skull. His blunt nose flares its' nostrils as he descends upon you- only to be met with the silvered hilt of your candlestick. He falls back as if struck by a blow much greater than your own, and you dive out of bed, grabbing your dagger from underneath your pillow. He whips around and snarls, and the candle snuffs out, plunging you both into darkness.

You run, and you don't stop. The banister guides you, straight ahead, left, then another, until there's a break, a gap in the rotted wood that sends you tumbling down the stairs. Damp clothes fall on top of you, and you don't stop to catch them, heaving with heavy, panicked breaths out the door. You only stop to pull the door shut, and under the light of the moon, you see it, his scarred, hungry expression give way to fear, to panic, to it has been so long, before flickering back to that righteous, indignant anger as the door slams closed.

The mud is slippery, especially without your boots, but you could not stop to take them, let alone slip them on. You crash down into the mud, and take a moment to right yourself, your panicked grabbing doing little against the slick surface beneath you. But you cannot stop. Eventually, you scramble to your feet, in a half-crouched start, sprinting down the path. There has to be somewhere else, anywhere else, any bastion of light that you can find yourself safe in, safe against the chimera who nearly had you then.

But it's very dark. You can't make out the path you were on, nor a way forward.

You hear, in the distance, the howl of a wolf.