Fuchsia Wildfoot knelt in the mud and stared at her own footprints. Each one sank deep, longer than her forearm, hot pink hairs caught along the edges. Three hikers had vanished from these woods in a month. The whole valley whispered that a monster took them. Now her tracks ran straight past the last place a hiker was seen. If anyone followed them, they would find her. She had to erase the trail before dawn, or she would be the monster they hunted. She worked fast. She dragged a fallen branch behind her, sweeping print after print into smears. But the ground was soft from rain, and each drag left its own mark. For every track she hid, she made a new one. By the time she reached the ridge, her arms shook and the trail behind her looked worse than before. Then she saw it. Near the last clear footprint grew a tall flower with curling petals, deep pink and speckled dark. Its stem was snapped low, crushed flat by something heavy. Fuchsia had not stepped there. She crouched and pressed her palm beside the broken bloom. A second footprint sat in the dirt. It was long and deep, like hers, but the toes spread wrong, and the heel dug a claw. Her stomach dropped. She was not the only large thing walking these woods. She followed the strange track uphill. It led to a split boulder, and inside the gap sat a cluster of geodes, their crystal cores glowing rainbow in the dark. Someone had wedged them there on purpose. Around the stones lay three things that did not belong: a boot, a torn backpack strap, and a bracelet still buckled shut. The missing hikers' things. Not eaten. Collected. Fuchsia understood then. The real monster had a den, and it had been building this trail to end at her. Her prints and its prints crossed all through these woods. To anyone who came looking, they would blur into one guilty story. She could not hide every track. There were too many now, hers and the creature's tangled together. So she stopped erasing. Instead she picked up the bracelet. She pulled the boot free and slung the strap over her shoulder. If the tracks pointed to her, she would follow them first. She would carry proof that the missing gear ended at a den that was not her home. Let the searchers come. She would meet them holding the truth in her hands. Fuchsia turned downhill toward the glow of her own treehouse, the stolen bracelet cold against her wrist. She had wanted to disappear from the story. Now she was walking straight into it. The tracks no longer only accused her. They led somewhere, and she meant to reach the end before anyone else did.