On the edge of the farm, just where the woods thickened, lived a white cat. The farmers called her Snow, though they rarely saw her except at dusk, when she slinked into the trees to hunt. Her fur gleamed against the fading light, a ghostly streak against the darkening forest.
Locals whispered that Snow wasn’t like other cats. Woodland critters began disappearing—rabbits, squirrels, even birds—vanishing without a trace. But it wasn’t the missing animals that unnerved them. It was the strange tracks found deep in the woods, prints far too large and twisted to belong to a cat.
One evening, the farmer’s son followed her, curious to see where she hunted. Snow moved silently, and as the boy crept deeper into the woods, the light faded to an eerie twilight. He stopped when he saw her, crouched by a pile of bones. Snow turned her head slowly, eyes gleaming unnaturally bright.
Before his eyes, she rose on her hind legs, her body stretching, warping into something monstrous. Her mouth, once delicate and feline, stretched wide, revealing rows of sharp, gleaming teeth.
The boy ran, but behind him, the soft padding of paws had turned to the heavy thud of something much larger stalking him through the trees.