Prologue: Stirrings

It was as if the tempest never happened.

The air smelled of damp grass and soil, and the breeze rustled the thick canopy of leaves and branches that managed to hold strong from the storm that had ravaged the countryside in the last few days. The ground was littered with fallen trees in some areas. The wind had even managed to blow in debris from the village nearby.

This scenario filled every corner of the forest - all the way to the clearing close to the slope, where a large mound of fresh earth now lay.

The villagers had been warned of the possibility of a landslide because of the heavy rains. Sure enough, the mountain slope hadn't been able to hold firm, and collapsed during the night.

However, there were bound to be people who considered other things important over their lives...

And proof of that was barely visible through the rubble and soil.

A single hand can be seen sticking out from the towering mound. If one were to have a closer look, it would appear to belong to a middle-aged man - likely a villager, by the coarse sleeve and tan it sported. The calluses on its fingers showed it was a person who constantly handled manual labor.

The poor soul's body had long gone cold.

However...

Twitch.

Twitch, twitch.

Then, as if being pricked by hot needles, the fingers started to flex.

The sound of scrapes and a somewhat frantic clawing broke the silence, and continued for a few hours before quiet returned to the surroundings. The hand that had been poking out from the collapsed soil had disappeared - all that was left in its place was a hole and loose dirt that had been thrown here and there around it.

...

Hours after that, the peace was once more broken by new arrivals.

"Looks like some lucky animal managed to get itself outta there."

The man who had been staring at the foot of the mound nodded. "Must've been a strong one. It's hard to squirm out of this shit. But you know--"

I kind of expected an animal with a strength like that to be-- bigger?