January 5, 2001
The forest should've been quiet at night—calm, still, predictable.
Instead, it felt like something was holding its breath.
Three black cars raced down a narrow dirt road, headlights cutting shaky paths through the trees. Branches scraped the sides as if trying to drag the cars back. Inside each vehicle, no one spoke. They didn't need to. The fear on every face spoke loud enough.
Not fear of the dark.Not fear of the woods.
Fear of what was behind them.
Max Fosher's hands locked around the steering wheel of the middle car, fingers numb from the pressure. His breath left pale streaks across the windshield. He refused to check the mirror. He already knew what he'd see.
The hooded man.
Max had watched him walk through a burning doorway only an hour earlier—unharmed, unhurried, eyes glowing faintly beneath the hood as if lit from within.
Max swallowed hard and pushed harder on the gas.
Somewhere behind him, a sudden shriek of brakes tore through the night. The last car's tires screamed, then fell silent.
Max didn't look. Neither did the others.
Whatever stopped that car… none of them were ready to see it.
The forest held a moment of tense, heavy stillness.
Then—A concussive blast rolled through the trees.Metal, fire, and shockwaves.
Max barely had time to brace before the lead car slammed its brakes. His vehicle plowed into it, twisting metal together with a brutal grind. The impact threw him forward, the airbag exploding out and snapping his head back. His jaw cracked against the fabric. His ears rang. His vision smeared into a mess of spinning shapes.
By the time his senses crawled back, the world smelled like gasoline.
And silence.
A silence that felt wrong.
Max forced himself out of the wreck, legs trembling, breath sharp with blood. He looked down at his own body—cut, bruised, soaked in red. He let out a breathless, shaky laugh.
"I'm… alive," he whispered. "I can go home. I can still go home."
Home.His wife.His little girl.
He took one step. Just one.
A shadow moved at the tree line.
Max froze.
The hooded figure stepped into the weak moonlight—tall, steady, a curved blade hanging at his side like a calm promise.
Max's breath seized.
"You…" His voice rasped. "You're still—"
The man tilted his head. That was answer enough.
Max stumbled back, desperation cracking through his voice. "Please… I didn't do anything! I swear, I didn't even know what Frank was planning!"
The hooded man said nothing. He didn't need to. His silence was colder than the night around them.
Max understood then.
He wasn't dying for his own sins.He was dying because he was Frank Fosher's brother.
His last breath shivered out of him. His final thought was a plea that his family would never see this place.
The blade rose.Moonlight caught its edge.
Then darkness.
The next morning, authorities reported one body.
Max Fosher.
No mention of the other men.No trace of the chase.No evidence anyone else had been there at all.
Max's corpse was left behind for one purpose:
A warning.
Frank Fosher was next.
And far from that forest, Frank already knew exactly whose shadow had brushed his door.
A name he feared more than death itself—
Asher Di Diavolo.