A Risk I had to take

The night was thick, suffocating in its silence. There was no sound—no wind, no distant chirp of insects, no rustling of animals in the underbrush. Nothing but the faint ticking of the cooling engine and our own uneasy breaths.

Then, a whisper of movement. A rustling—so faint it could have been a trick of the wind.

Except… there was no wind.

Our eyes darted left to right, muscles coiled, breaths held. Then, in the blink of an eye, the blood on the map surged—racing toward our location with the speed of a lightning bolt.

And before we could react—before we could even process what was happening—it passed.

A blur of crimson, streaking by our vehicle like a phantom in the night.

I tilted my head out of the car window, peeking out into the oppressive darkness. My breath hitched. A shadow had just passed by—too fast, too fluid. My pulse pounded.

“I swear I saw something—someone—right beside me!” I gasped, whipping my head back toward the others. “Dominic wouldn’t toy with us lik