2Most of the men at Jay's new logging camp are convicts, just like him. Each of them is searching for a way out of the system, and some are grappling with their demons better than others. One man in particular constantly tests Jay's dedication to change.

What the working men of the camp don't realize, is that there's something else that lives and lurks between the trees. It is ancient, it is predatory, and it is hungry.

Will Jay be able to forge a new path, or will his past, or the monster, consume him?

The thing's aura bore down on his psyche as an unnatural and foreign fear began to rise within. This was a fear like he'd never known. In his time, he'd tracked apex predators, broken bones in the wild, been shot at by poachers, and lost for weeks at a time. Dan knew how to handle fear, but this panic cut him to his core. Until now he had splashed in puddles and pools of fear, but now he swam in an ocean of it. The strange being that stood before him was like a wave that rose up as high as a mountain. It intended to crash down upon him and crush him into the depths of blackness; the kind that only the mad could ever glimpse.

All he could see as he tried to stay on his feet was a warm, gently glowing, yellow orb against the rain heavy sky.