For weeks, Alana had been digging deep into the mud, sifting and recording everything: every fragment of clay; every bone; every fossilized lump of faeces. She was loving it - the site discovered under a derelict monastery was bountiful, the discoveries ran deeper than the expected clerical finds: the monastery had been constructed on top of a much older civilization.

Alana was diligent in her work and, because it was for love rather than profit (as her slowly-rotting bedsit testified), she shared all her finds straight away. When she found the rolled-up length of dried skin, however, she felt differently. Handling it with gloves, she hid it in her backpack, examining it in faint light, in her room. The leather reminded her of dried human skin she had seen in the Pitt Rivers Museum. Dyed onto it were shapes, which were identifiable as local features. The knoll, the edges of a forest, the river. There was an 'X' marked by the knoll. Alana laughed: a treasure map?

For the first time on that dig, Alana cried off from the pub, blaming an oncoming cold. When the others were safely away and drinking, she sneaked over to the spot marked on the map and began to shovel. Alone in the darkening evening, without proper lighting to avoid drawing attention, she slipped and fell. Or at least she assumed that was what had happened when she woke in the morning with a sore head, sunlight piercing through the trees.

Alana had spent the night in a ditch without even drinking - she hoped no-one would find out. Such mundane worries drained away when she registered her surroundings had changed from the previous day. The sky and knoll looked about the same but the forest was now thick with trees and there were shelters that had not been there last night, made of leather stretched over large bones. From the forest she heard a dragging noise, instinct led her to hide and watch. It came from out of the trees. Alana would best describe it as a not-quite finished person. Stretched skin failed to fully cover its body, meat and bones showing through in places. It shambled along, pulling a smashed body behind.

When the thing had passed by and disappeared into one of the makeshift structures, Alana gathered her thoughts. More noises were coming from the forest. Shuffling, wet grunting noises. Away from the forest were more structures. She decided against making contact with these creatures. Still out of view, she consulted the map. Inexplicably, the X had moved to a spot deep in the forest. 

Stalking through the forest, Alana hid at every sign of the creatures. At last, as the light of the day was fading, Alana found the centre of the forest, a clearing culminating in a long barrow that corresponded to the map's X. Sounds emerged from the trees on all sides. More of those shuffling things were gathering. There was only one option. As the things closed in on her, Alana ran…