It was the cold that roused Valeria to her senses, a biting, merciless, unforgiving cold that sent waves of goosebumps rippling across her nude flesh with every breeze, sinking deep into her bones like the bite of some hungry animal. Green eyes blinked in confusion, and a strangled cry echoed out into the winter’s night at the realization she’d been stripped naked, the noise stifled by the length of black cloth drawn tight between her lips. “Nnnggghh! Mmmmppppggghhh!” she screamed, curly dark hair thrashing about in her struggles. She’d been bound spread-eagle between a pair of stone pillars, short lengths of rope binding her at the wrists and ankles, and try as she might, there was not an inch of slack to be found, the muscles in her shoulders and thighs aching from the strain. “Mmmppgggh! MMMMPPPPGGGGHHHH!”
What happened? the beautiful snowboarder demanded, the lingering effects of the drug leaving her mind clouded as she struggled to remember. Yes… yes, she had been drugged. At the party at the hotel, perhaps? After spending all day on the slopes, she’d been left hungry and eager for a bit of mulled wine to warm her up, and there were so many people who could have tampered with it… From there, it was all a blur, leaving her with the vague memory of a man’s voice, the touch of cold steel as her clothes were sliced away, and then…
And then Valeria’s eyes finally adjusted to the darkness, and a scream of absolute horror ripped through her throat. Bones, human bones, littered the ground around her, a veritable field of them, each and every last one shattered or split apart for their marrow, as if to assuage some desperate, inhuman hunger. Terror gave her limbs strength, the cold forgotten, and she threw her entire body against her bonds, the remote copse echoing with the sound of her screams. “MMMPPPPGGGGHHH!”
From out of the night, something answered. A giant shape, easily ten feet tall, silently detached itself from behind an ancient pine, creeping towards her the menace of a cat stalking a mouse. Valeria had the impression of a deer’s skull, complete with a distended jaw brimming with carnivorous fangs, grotesquely proportioned limbs ending in long clawed fingers, and a torso so anemic the creature’s ribs were clearly visible. Step by step, it approached, soulless black eyes observing her struggles, and as the rank, rotting meat stench of its breath hit her, Valeria wondered what exactly she’d done to be turned into bait for a wendigo…