Your wrists are bound in front of you with coarse rope, the fibers digging into your skin just enough to sell the illusion. A faint, theatrical trickle of blood—pig’s blood, from the packet in your pocket—dries on your temple.

From the floor above, the heavy, deliberate footsteps of the Rawhead echo. It's a patient creature, one that likes to savor its fear. It thinks it has cornered a helpless little thing. It thinks it has all the time in the world.

The cellar door splinters inward with a deafening crack, showering the room with wood fragments. Two silhouettes fill the doorway, backlit by the dim twilight.