There's a quaint little town somewhere in the distance, almost isolated from the rest of civilization. It's a rather rural place containing a few hundred people and a small surrounding forest. Despite the small size of the area, the streets would always be bustling with folks running errands, working on outdoor projects, and being generally social. Now, those roads are empty. Well, empty of human beings, rather. You see, something has been spreading among us lately. A sickness that has left our community in ruin has fallen upon us, turning the world as we know it on its head. No, not a sickness, but something more. Something none of us could have ever imagined has emerged, consuming not only our humanity but the hope we once held as well.

When the animals began acting strangely, we initially tried our best to pass it off as nothing. We would catch the deer peering at us from the foliage. They never blinked, all they did was keep their eyes on anyone who passed by, tracking their every movement. When I found myself close to the woods, I noticed several eyes glued onto me. As I cautiously approached them, something seemed wrong.

They weren't even remotely afraid of me, holding their ground and continuously observing my movements. I stopped in my tracks, taking in the sight of the deer before me. Their bodies were scraped and bruised like something had brutally assaulted them. Their form was almost skeleton-like as a result of malnourishment. Despite their injuries, their face lacked any sort of emotion at all. It was as if they weren't even aware of their condition. I silently backed away from the deer, their eyes still locked onto my every move.

The strange confrontations with the animals would progressively grow weirder as time went on. Rather than holding their ground when someone was close by, they would begin approaching the person. At first, their movements were methodical, and their eyes never wavered from their target. Soon enough, however, they grew bolder and their movements became faster. Some people would awake in the dead of night to find a pair of an animal's eyes glaring at them through the window. Their faces would be pressed against the glass, breathing heavily on the clear surface. During these stages, their bodies were even thinner, their wounds more profound, and their eyes far wider than before. Their faces which had once been ripe with life now appeared sunken; their skin was stuck against the bone underneath.