The trail wound upward, a narrow ribbon of dirt and rock snaking through the dense pine forest. Maria Elena adjusted the straps of her backpack, the weight familiar and comforting. She'd hiked these mountains since she was a child, but this was the first time she'd ventured out alone.
The air was crisp, scented with the sharp fragrance of pine and damp earth. Above, the sky was a brilliant, cloudless blue. It was the kind of day that made you feel alive, invigorated. Still, she sensed a strangeness, a feeling on the periphery of her feelings, that started to nag at the edges of the otherwise beautiful scene around her.
She'd told her brother, Joaquin, where she was going. "Just a day hike," she'd said. "Up to the Serpent's Spine and back." Joaquin had frowned, his dark brows drawing together. "Be careful, Elena. Those mountains… they hold secrets."
Maria Elena had laughed it off. Secrets. Old wives' tales, she'd thought. But now, with the sun beginning its descent, casting long, dancing shadows, his words echoed in her mind, because this feeling on the periphery of her being, would not let up, and was beginning to form into what felt like impending dread.
She reached a clearing, a small meadow ringed by towering peaks. The Serpent's Spine, a jagged ridge of rock that resembled a monstrous backbone, dominated the view. It was an impressive and a unnerving sight. It always, in Maria's past, seemed to stand for some power much bigger than herself.
A flicker of movement caught her eye. Near the edge of the woods, something dark, indistinct, vanished behind a thicket of trees. Maria Elena stopped, her heart beating faster. Probably just a deer, she told herself. Or a bear. Nothing to worry about.
"Hello?" she called out, her tone a little shaky. Her tone echoed back to her, unanswered, swallowed by the vastness of the mountains. A sense of unease began to settle over her, colder and heavier than the mountain air.
She continued her ascent, the trail growing steeper, more treacherous. The trees thinned, replaced by bare rock and patches of scrubby vegetation. The wind picked up, whispering through the crags and crevices of the Serpent's Spine.
Again, she saw it. A fleeting glimpse of something dark, moving just at the edge of her vision. This time, it seemed closer. Larger. Her skin prickled with a sudden, intense fear.
"Who's there?" Her tone was louder this time, a challenge rather than a question. Silence. A silence so profound it felt oppressive, suffocating. The only sound was the wind, a mournful cry that seemed to mock her fear.
Maria Elena considered turning back. It was getting late, the sun sinking lower, painting the sky in shades of orange and purple. But something propelled her forward, a stubborn refusal to be driven away by fear.
She reached the base of the Serpent's Spine. The rock face loomed above her, intimidating, forbidding. She began to climb, carefully placing her hands and feet on the narrow ledges and crevices.
The feeling of being watched intensified. It felt like eyes, cold and calculating, were fixed on her back. She resisted the urge to look over her shoulder, afraid of what she might see. And, now, it did not seem like it could just be another animal, a deer or a bear.
Halfway up, she paused, clinging to a narrow ledge. Below, the world spread out like a map, the forest a dark green carpet stretching to the horizon. The beauty of the view, however, was lost on her.
There was a scraping sound, a dislodged stone clattering down the rock face. Maria Elena looked up. Above her, silhouetted against the fading light, was a figure. It was human-shaped, but distorted, unnaturally tall and thin.
Terror choked her, paralyzing her with a primal fear she'd never known. The figure began to descend, moving with an uncanny, fluid grace. It was as if it were sliding down the rock face, rather than climbing.
"Stay away!" she screamed, her tone cracking with desperation. Her cry echoed across the mountains, but the figure continued its descent, relentless, inexorable. And, worse, it seemed to gather an unnatural speed.
It reached her in a matter of seconds. It was close enough now for her to see its face. Or, rather, the absence of a face. Where there should have been features, there was only a smooth, blank expanse of flesh.
It reached out a hand, long and skeletal, the fingers tipped with claws that gleamed in the twilight. Maria Elena tried to scramble away, but there was nowhere to go. She was trapped.
The creature made a sound, a low, guttural growl that vibrated through the very rock beneath her feet. It wasn't a sound of this world, something alien and ancient, filled with a malice that chilled her to the core.
With chilling, and horrifying swiftness, it grabbed her arm. Its grip was like iron, unbreakable. Maria Elena screamed again, a sound of pure terror and agony, as the creature pulled her close.
She felt a searing pain as the claws sank into her flesh. She struggled, fighting with every ounce of strength she possessed, but it was useless. The creature was too strong.
It leaned closer, its blank face inches from hers. She could smell its stench, a fetid, decaying odor that made her gag. Then, it did something unexpected. It tilted its head, as if studying her.
"Joaquin," she sobbed, the name of her brother a desperate plea, a last, futile attempt at defiance. A tear ran down her cheek, tracing a path through the dust and grime.
The creature's grip tightened. It lifted her effortlessly, holding her suspended over the abyss. Maria Elena looked down, at the dizzying drop below, and knew this was the end.
It spoke, its tone a rasping whisper that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. "Joaquin… yes… the worry… he feels…"
The words made no sense, but the malice behind them was unmistakable. The creature was toying with her, savoring her terror. It was enjoying this, this slow, drawn-out torment.
"Please…" she begged, her tone barely a whisper. "Let me go…" She didn't expect mercy, but she couldn't help but plead. It was a reflex, a primal instinct to survive.
The creature's response was a chilling laugh, a sound that scraped across her nerves like a rusty blade. Then, it tightened its grip, crushing her hand against the face of the mountains.
Her bone fractured, and a bolt of pure, excruciating pain ripped through Maria Elena's arm. Her stomach convulsed and emptied its contents.
It dangled her farther away, slowly and meticulously to stretch and maximize the moment of peak dread. Her broken and crushed hand gave just enough way for gravity to pull, at any moment.
"No! NO!"
But instead of letting go, as she'd wished in some buried recess of self preservation, the hand closed around the bottom of her boot, to change the torment yet again.
And it pulled, dislodging her other hand, leaving her at the total mercy of the entity in some perverted act, so foreign to what was human, yet understood at her deepest core.
The world lurched sideways as she twisted. The creature ripped downward, the force both shattering the bones in her leg and causing the skin, muscles, and other tissue, to separate.
Now it was she who made the alien sound, a sound from nightmares, unearthly in every aspect, with no trace left of Maria, or Elena, the name Joaquin had shortened as children.
She dangled now by raw tendons and muscles that should be covered by skin and held taught by her bones and skeletal system. It was this alone that made her know her suffering would last a while, a tendon was extraordinarily difficult to snap.
The sound returned, that scraping whisper, as though the very rocks of the mountain vibrated it straight into her bones and marrow.
"Pain… fear… he… tastes…"
And again, the sick slow methodical way of doing things showed itself. The creature grasped one remaining portion of exposed and flayed leg. It slowly wound its grip.
She knew this because, after that first horrible crack, the sounds did not stop. And as its arm moved in that slow, circular manner, it was undeniable.
The skin separated first. A line appeared and became blood. Then muscle, as it bunched against itself, before separating away, to become stringy, exposed.
As the thing continued the slow movement, all of those parts became taught against the still-connected tendon. One after the next, smaller ones snapped in succession.
The sound returned, at some length, and by now she barely registered what it conveyed. It was like the sounds were separate and not connected to any actual form of language.
"More… worry… taste… pain… sister… no… sister…"
Maria Elena's world reduced to a single point of agonizing pain, a burning inferno that consumed her entire being. She was aware of nothing else, not the creature, not the mountains, not the dying light.
The tendon held. The creature did it again, closer to her knee. It found purchase yet another time, with one of the other ligaments. And wound that one until it tore away, the flesh pulling with it.
"Fear…" the scrape whispered. "…tastes… pain…" It made its low, gutteral noise.
The last one broke.
As Maria Elena fell, there was a finality.
It caught her with that vice grip it demonstrated, when it ripped her ankle out. But that wasn't for her benefit. It was a new game.
And as Maria let out a final, fading wail of terror and anguish that she'd previously been holding back in the recesses of what was left of her mind, it tossed her sideways with her head at its waist.
It had all been methodical to this point. Precise, even, despite the chaotic imagery it provoked. Now it wasn't.
The headless creature's arm swung against its abdomen with blinding and terrible force. It released, at the precise moment when it knew that what should house her skull and brain, met stone.
The force, that had previously torn apart skin and sinew and shattered bone with coldness and ease, became like a bomb on soft tissue.
No sound left of the wail.
Joaquin found neither Maria's brain, nor its housing. He was left with the cold comfort that she felt little in the last instant, though his soul was shattered for weeks by what came before.