Albatwitch

Short, shaggy, and not interested in holding still for a sketch. Witnesses put it somewhere between three and five feet, covered in dark hair, with a face that's human enough to unsettle and animal enough to excuse. Most sightings are partial. Merely a shape dropping between branches, a silhouette against the sky that wasn't there a second ago. It moves through the canopy like it was born there. Probably was.

“The old accounts don't bother with buildup. Church groups losing entire picnic spreads to something in the trees. Apple cores raining down on blankets. A woman who swore something chittered at her from the branches when she tried to take her basket back. The stories were common enough that folks stopped treating them as strange and started treating them as local. You went to Chickies Rock, you watched your food, you kept your opinions to yourself if something took it anyway. That was just how it was.”