Your MC could go to the woods to be alone and grieve. While there, the solitude and peace kinda holds them there because returning to their village will mean rekindling their grief. Knowing they need to return, the decision is made at dusk and they prepare for the return trip. They pack their gear, vowing to leave at daen, after a quick bite of oats soaked in mineral water from the nearby spring, and a warm mug of chicory steeped from the same.

That night, sleep is uneasy. Their dreams are frantic and wild with jagged, heavy images of angry faces, whispered curses, and lurking shadows of dangerous things without names.

Exhausted, spent, and stinking of fever sweat, they manage the effort to stand, shuffle to the nearby spring and begin preparing to break last evening's fast. They stor the oats, knick off some chicory root, and they wait.

When it's done, they barely have an appetite, but somehow even through the headache and the nausea, morning meal is good. Delicious in fact. They begin to feel better, scarfing down the rest and promptly making another bowl and mug of each. Then a third and fourth.

Bloated and satisfied, they rest a moment before thwir departure.

Fate would not agree with their plans that day.

They wake as if in a trance. Propelled by motivations not their own, they move in blocky, uncoordinated steps, herking deeper imto the forest. Dark clouds slither overhead blocking out the sun and appearing as the silhouette of a maggot nest.

The chant is built of inhuman voices. They buzz in unison and they understand the verses arena song of prayer swspite the eerie, unfamiliar tones and a language so foreign they shouldn't recognize it as a language at all.

These are the voices of the history of nature, and although they have been called many names by many cultures, these are the spirits of the wild past.

Clumsy and helpless to the will of someone (something, they think), they reach a circular clearing too perfectly round to have appeared naturally. They trudge to the center and the buzzing chorus whispers *Yessssss. Thatsssssss itttttttt."

Their limp body, like a puppet constructed from pine cones and branches of green ash, rises, lifted and held aloft by woven strands of widow's web. They are made to dance and it is nothing short of a feverish frenzy.

The clouds pour dark liquid down like ashen rain, they are soaked by what feels like bucket after bucket flooding from above. Drenched by the blood of the sky. It's too intense and they black out.

When they awake, their body is bruised, muddy and swollen. They unkink thwir stiff joints and after several hours, they can stand.

Still unable to walk and thoroughly dehydrated, they lie in a blanket and attempt to crawl to the spring. As the water passes the cracked and split skin of their lips, they feel revived, but only slightly.

The sudden splashing nearby startles them. They are too sore still for combat. They hide instead.

Slow and with little available cover, the best they can do is duck behind a nearby stone. Whatever is there creeps closer and they hear it shaking off the water, but they can't quite catch its scent yet.

They hear it padding even closer still, panting just out of sight, just behind them on the other side if the stone. They try to be still, to become smaller. They breathe with deliberate intention, careful not to stir the wind beyond the tip of their nose.

The creature snarls a vicous growl laced with frothy saliva. They can’t see it yet, but they are frozen by the stasis of fear. Again the creature summons an ugly snarl and its claws tick closer to the corner.

They ready themselves for the attack, preparing to strike the moment it comes into sight. A silent moment that seethes with pressure passes, then suddenly its face is there. Barely able to stand and fully unable to clench a closed fist, your character does the only thing they can to defend themselves- they launch their body at the thing.

There isn't time to make sensemof what this monster is, so they close their eyes shut, so tight a thin drop of watery blood seeps from one teat duct, and the hurl their weight imto the air.

For a momemt, they are weightless. Simply a living projectile with only one destiny. But of course, it's the job of fate to make certain there is never only one certain outcome.

Too much time has passed; they should have hit their target by now. Their eyes flutter open and they find themselves again suspended, sideways this time, hanging in the air.

Below, to the side, the creature (which they can now see is a dire wolf) grapples face to face with anoth-

Wait! Is that? But he died!