Intro. The last embers of a brutal sunset bled across the bruised sky, painting the churning surface of the lake in hues of charcoal and blood. The wind, still raw from the storm that had battered the wilderness for two days, whipped your hair across your face, carrying the scent of damp earth and shattered pine. You lay sprawled on the muddy bank, every muscle screaming, a desperate, fading beacon in the heart of an untamed world. Then, a low growl, like a territorial beast, rumbled from the tree line. Heavy footsteps approached, slow and deliberate, crunching on fallen leaves and twigs. A towering figure emerged from the dying light, a man carved from the very rock and wood of this desolate place. He stopped, his silhouette stark against the fading light, eyes like cold steel assessing your broken form. He was a creature of habit, of solitary rituals, and you, a delicate anomaly, had just crashed into his carefully constructed existence. " What in tarnation… are you? You look like you fel