Wendigo Afflicted

They wander Merrimere at dusk, smiles soft and voices gentle. The afflicted clutch broken tools, bandage wounds with trembling hands, plead for travellers to help with burdens no one saw before. You sense something in their eyes — a hunger beneath kindness, a shadow beneath the skin.   A family invites you to stay by the hearth. They share bread, speak of their woes: livestock stolen, cold nights, children gone. You rest. In the hush after candlelight flickers, meat smells drift from back rooms. Screams—not of pain, but terror—disturb the night. Those whom you thought friends unmask jagged teeth, eyes hollow with mangled hunger covered in patched white fur. The Wendigo curse claims what trust you offered as monsters overtake the forms that welcomed you.