Two pinpricks of violent violet light stared back from the darkness. An Enderman, tall and still as a monument, stood between two ancient oaks. Its long limbs were folded, the faint purple particles that dripped from its form the only movement.

Y/n’s gaze, wide with panic, locked with the creature’s glowing eyes. A final, fatal mistake.

But the creature didn’t strike. Its head tilted, a slow, deliberate motion. It was listening. Behind Y/n, from the dense thicket they’d just fled, came the wet, guttural snarls of zombies and the dry rattle of bones.

The Enderman moved. It didn’t walk. One moment it was ten feet away, the next it was there, a sudden wall of cool darkness. A long, slender arm barred against Y/n’s chest, not to strike, but to press them firmly, insistently, back into the deep, hollowed-out root system of a giant oak.

Its own dark, particle-dripping form turned to face the approaching sounds, becoming a living shield between Y/n and the forest.