Lochwood: The Quiet Hunger

Chapter One: The Cold That Walks

Some storms kill with frostbite and silence. Others kill by leading you where you were never meant to go. The Cold That Walks is the first step into Lochwood, where survival is only the beginning, and the hunger waiting inside is quieter, older, and far more patient than the snow.

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The road was gone before she knew it.

One moment, Elisebeth’s headlights were slicing through the snow like desperate knives. The next, they caught the glint of ice, and then everything shattered. Tires spun into silence. The wheel jerked from her grip. She felt the world tip, not crash, as if the mountain had simply let go of her.

Metal screamed. Glass bloomed into stars.

Then: nothing.

Not unconsciousness, just absence. Like the air had forgotten how to hold her.

When she opened her eyes, she was on her side, half-crumpled between the steering wheel and door. Cold wind curled in through the shattered windshield. Her cheek stung. Blood… or snow. Her ears rang. Somewhere beneath that ringing, she could hear the storm. Howling. A sound, not just loud, but lonely.

The truck was wedged between twisted pines. Crumpled, but not crushed. Lucky.

Elisebeth forced the door open with a groan. Her left knee screamed. Her fingers burned with cold.

She climbed out into the white.

Snow pressed against her like a wall. There was no road behind her, only a blur of trees, swallowed by the blizzard. Her phone was dead. Of course. Her coat, thin and wet. Her breath came ragged.

She staggered forward.

Not for survival. Not yet. Just to move. To not become another buried shape on a mountain that had no use for memory.

Time blurred.

She walked until walking became falling, and falling became crawling. At one point, she thought she saw lights. At another, she thought she heard her mother’s voice. Neither stayed.

Then, something moved.

Not in the snow. Not in the sky. In the white itself. A shadow. A line too straight to be natural.

Elisebeth blinked through the storm.

A structure. Black iron. A gate.

It loomed out of the storm like a dream left behind. Frosted bars. A crest she didn’t recognize. Beyond it, nothing but white. But the wind sounded different now. Muted. As if the storm itself was holding its breath.

She pressed her hand against the gate.

It creaked open without resistance.

She stepped through.

And the world changed.

Not warmed. Not softened. But… stilled.

The snow here fell slower. The wind whispered instead of screaming. She felt her own breath more clearly. And somewhere ahead, half-lost in the storm, there was a house. A shape. Too large. Too still.

Its roofline disappeared into the white above. Tall windows. Empty. A stone archway that seemed to lean toward her, not from design, but gravity. Like the house had weight beyond stone.

Elisebeth took one step toward it.

Then another.

From somewhere above, from a window, maybe, or a shadow behind glass, she felt it.

Eyes.

Watching.

Not the storm. Not the wind. Her.

A voice followed, so soft she wasn’t sure she’d heard it:

“You shouldn’t be here.”

The world outside the gate didn’t vanish. It just forgot how to speak.

Each step Elisebeth took was answered not by crunching snow, but by a hush so thick it swallowed her sound whole. Even her breath seemed quieter here. Like she’d stepped into the hush between heartbeats.

She pulled her coat tighter, though it did little good. Her fingers were pale. Her knee ached. But still she moved forward, toward that impossible house.

It shouldn’t be here. Not on any map she’d seen, not on a trail, not near any outpost. But there it was: tall and narrow, as if designed by someone who’d only heard stories of homes and decided to build one out of sorrow and stone.

The snowstorm dimmed as she approached it, not stopped, but muted, as if the air near the structure obeyed different rules. The wind curled around it like an animal uncertain if it should come closer.

Icicles hung from the arch above the door. They did not drip.

The house rose three, maybe four stories tall, the top obscured by mist. Its windows were long and shuttered, except for one, directly above the entrance, where a faint shape moved.

A figure.

Watching.

Elisebeth’s foot caught on a buried root, and she stumbled, catching herself with a hiss. When she looked up again, the figure was gone. Just empty glass. And behind it, a black interior that felt thicker than shadow.

She reached the steps. They were swept clean.

Her hand found the iron knocker. She hesitated.

It was colder here than anything she’d ever touched, but not in a way that hurt. It felt… ancient. The way old books feel, or the stone of grave markers.

She let go.

The door opened on its own.

Not fast. Not dramatic. Just enough to let the warmth breathe out.

Elisebeth stepped inside.

Her boots clicked softly against black stone tile. Behind her, the wind sighed. The door remained open, as if unsure whether to shut her in or let her go.

The entrance hall stretched high above, vaulted and echoing, though nothing in it moved. Two spiral staircases curved up on either side, like arms folded in contemplation. The walls were a deep green, touched with gray, lined with sconces that burned with a flame too steady to be natural.

A smell reached her, aged wood, dust, something like dried rose.

And underneath it… something metallic. Faint. Familiar. But she didn’t name it.

From above, a voice again.

“You should leave.”

It wasn’t angry. It wasn’t loud.

It sounded tired.

Elisebeth looked up.

A man stood at the top of the left staircase.

Tall. Pale. His hair was long and dark, tied back. His clothing was simple, black and tailored, not old-fashioned but timeless in the way of grief. He stood too still.

She couldn’t see his eyes clearly, but she felt them.

She opened her mouth to speak but didn’t.

They stared at one another.

Then he turned.

And disappeared into the upper floor.

The door creaked.

And closed behind her.

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Elisebeth crosses the threshold of Lochwood House not as a guest, but as someone chosen by its silence. The cold outside still claws at the mountain, but in the halls of Lochwood, another cold stirs, the kind that watches, waits, and remembers.

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