"Judgment Night"

The sky over Nowhere turned the color of blood, and judgment came.

Abigail saw them first the shapes moving against the crimson aurora, too large to be birds, too purposeful to be clouds. The Mothman-Flatwoods hybrid circling overhead. The Thunderbird/Piasa gathering storm clouds around itself like armor. The Batsquatch rising from the mines on wings that blotted out the stars.

And through the streets, the Hidebehind moved shapes that were always in the corner of your eye, never quite visible, never quite absent.

Every creature they had encountered that season, every nightmare they had faced and survived, was converging on Nowhere at once.

Clara stood alone in the town square, watching the chaos with eyes that had seen civilizations rise and fall. She announced that it was beginning. The sorting.

Panic swept through Nowhere like wildfire.

Families barricaded themselves in their homes. Some tried to flee, but the creatures blocked every road, every path, every escape route. The town had become a cage and its residents were trapped inside with the things they feared most.

Abigail found Benji at the video store, frantically cross-referencing folklore from a dozen different cultures. His voice tight with barely controlled fear, he told her it didn't make sense. These creatures don't normally work together. They have different territories, different hunting patterns. Something was driving them.

Abigail identified the Wendigo. She could feel it pressing against her mind, vast and hungry and amused.

Maybe, Benji conceded. But he pointed out the window and noted that the Thunderbird had just flown over the Bailey house. It should have attacked Ian was its target. But it didn't even slow down.

Abigail understood. The creatures were avoiding the people who had faced their fears.

Clara's word echoed in her mind: sorting.

The pattern became clear as the night wore on.

The Baileys walked through the chaos untouched. They had confronted their marriage, acknowledged their failures, started the hard work of healing. The Thunderbird that had manifested from their dysfunction no longer recognized them as prey.

Satoshi Nakamura passed within feet of the Hidebehind without drawing its attention. He had revealed his secret, brought his shame into the light. There was nothing left for the creature to hunt.

But others weren't so lucky. People who had hidden from their fears, who had let their secrets fester and their guilt grow were being collected. Not killed the creatures didn't seem interested in death. But corralled. Herded toward the center of town like sheep toward a pen.

And at the center of everything stood Asher and Sasha the two people in Nowhere who had built their entire existence on deception.

The Skinwalker circled them, remembering. Hungry.

Abigail's visions hit her like hammer blows.

She saw the Wendigo orchestrating everything, using the cryptids as instruments of terror. But she also saw something else something that surprised her.

The cryptids were afraid.

Not of the humans. Not of each other. Of the Wendigo. They served it not because they wanted to, but because they had no choice. The "judgment" wasn't about punishing the townspeople it was about finding someone, anyone, who might be strong enough to free them.

And in her visions, Abigail saw her mother performing the same rituals, channeling the same power, standing between the darkness and the light exactly as Abigail was standing now.

She had been born for this. Her gifts weren't random weren't accidents. They were inherited, designed for exactly this moment.

The question was: did she have the courage to use them?

Abigail walked into the center of the chaos.

Every cryptid turned to face her. Every person in Nowhere watched through windows and doorways, holding their breath. The sky itself seemed to pause, the blood-red aurora freezing in place.

She didn't speak to the townspeople. She spoke to the creatures. Her voice carrying impossibly far in the sudden silence, she told them she knew they were afraid. She could feel it. The Wendigo held their chains, and they didn't know how to break free.

The Mothman-Flatwoods hybrid tilted its massive head. The Thunderbird's storm clouds rumbled uncertainly. Even the Hidebehind seemed to pause in its endless movement.

Abigail continued, telling them they didn't have to serve the thing that frightened them. Neither did she. She asked them to help her fight it instead.

The cryptids responded.

One by one, they bowed. The Mothman landed beside her, its wings folding protectively rather than threateningly. The Thunderbird calmed its storms. The Batsquatch retreated to the edge of town, standing guard rather than hunting.

Even the Skinwalker stopped circling Asher and Sasha and turned toward Abigail with something like hope in its stolen eyes.

The chaos subsided. The red sky faded.

And somewhere, watching from the darkness, the Wendigo began to laugh.

Clara found Abigail afterward, trembling with exhaustion and something else adrenaline, or terror, or the dawning realization of what she had just done.

Clara told her she had done well, but she had announced herself now. The Wendigo wouldn't send its servants anymore. It would come for her directly.

Abigail asked if she was ready. Clara's ancient eyes met hers as she answered that no one ever was. But Abigail had something her mother had: the willingness to face fear, not for herself, but for others. That was the only weapon that mattered.

Before Abigail could respond, movement caught her eye. Asher, in the shadows, reviewing footage on his camera footage of everything that had just happened. Her speech. The cryptids' submission. The power she had displayed.

He pulled out his phone and made a call. He told whoever answered that he had found the asset they'd been looking for. She was more powerful than they had imagined. He requested extraction.

Abigail's blood ran cold. She had just revealed herself to the Wendigo. But she had also revealed herself to whatever organization Asher worked for.

She was being hunted from two directions now.

The final image of the night burned itself into the memories of everyone who witnessed it.

The Wendigo, fully visible for the first time, rising from the darkness at the edge of town. A towering figure of shadow and antlers and endless, bottomless hunger. It looked at Abigail the small human woman who had just turned its servants against it and it smiled.

And then it spoke. Not to Abigail. Not to the townspeople. To the audience, to the world, to anyone who had ever felt afraid in the dark. The little girl thought she could fight it, it said. Let her come.

Its voice was the sound of winter wind through dead trees, of hungry nights that never ended, of every fear that had ever kept a human awake at three in the morning.

Fear always wins.

The challenge had been issued. The battle lines had been drawn.

And in Nowhere, Ohio, the final confrontation of the season was about to begin.