Scales: A Legend of Woodland Horror

I was in college when the scales fell from my eyes and I was confronted with the truth of the ancient horror that had long infested the wooded acreage surrounding my alma mater's campus.

I'd heard legends of the horned beast that roamed the forest, long before my highschool years and back into childhood. Truth be told, my love for cryptozoology drew me to the school, hoping to find myself face-to-face with the mutated aberration.

I nearly choked on my tongue when it actually happened! It was colossal -- taller than a moose -- and even with my armored vest I still felt small and squishy in the same space as this wild, eldritch sprit. Never had anything made me feel less like an apex predator.

Around me, the forest's silence was a deafening reminder of the danger I was in. This grotesque mockery, this...this perversion of nature was a stark reminder of the world's uncharted monstrosities. Its stare was petrifying, its very presence otherworldly, as though it had emerged whole from whatever external plane of existence had spawned it into my waking nightmare.

In silence I prayed for deliverance through some winged angelic escape, wished with frantic desperation for any sign that this was, in fact, a dream.

My hope was drown in a warm river along my leg; no one wets themself in a dream. The beast snorted, its repulsive breath a hot, rancid mist in the cool night air. I felt my stomach revolt at the odor, and the depths of my bowls clenched and rolled in protest. Without a sound, it turned and moved with a shambling gait toward whatever hidden lair it keeps.

To this day, my nightmares are still haunted with memories of it's weird, serrated teeth and blood-matted fur.