The town had changed.
It was in the air thicker, heavier, hunting those who dared to walk the streets after dark. The once-familiar roads now whispered with an unease that no one could quite name, but everyone felt.
It started with the sightings.
A shadow moving at the edge of vision. A shape standing in a window of an abandoned house, Footsteps on empty streets. Voices calling from nowhere.
Some swore they saw Daniel Cross.
Not in life. Not even as a corpse. But something in between.
The rumors spread like infection. A grocer claimed he saw Daniel standing outside his shop after closing staring. A teenager said he passed a man on the road who turned to face him, and in the flicker of the streetlight, his eyes were black pits. A woman swore she woke to her bedroom door creaking open, her window unlocked when she was certain she had bolted it shut.
And then came the killings.
The first body was found at dawn.
A local mechanic, Richard Bellamy, was discovered in the alley behind his shop. His throat had been ripped open. No weapon. No signs of struggle. Just a gaping wound, his body left in a way that made the officers avert their eyes.
Another followed. Then another.
Each one butchered. Each one with no signs of forced entry, no screams heard, no evidence left behind.
The police began a desperate search. And as if summoned by their hunt, the unthinkable happened.
They found him.
Daniel Cross.
Or what was left of him.
His body rotting, decomposed far beyond the days he had been missing was unearthed in the woods. The grave had been shallow, the dirt disturbed by some unseen force. Animals, perhaps. Or something else.
The corpse should not have been moving.
But people swore they had seen him.
Now, the town felt like a thing breathing in the dark.
And somewhere, in the quiet of a small house, Clara Monroe held Ivy close. The child slept, peaceful, unbothered by the nightmare pressing against the town’s walls.
But Clara knew better.
She knew this wasn’t over.
The town of Ravenswood had always been quiet, the kind of place where the wind spoke in hushed tones through the pines and the rivers whispered secrets against their stone banks. But something had shifted. The silence now carried weight thick, oppressive, unnatural.
It began with the dogs.
They refused to tread past the tree line, their bodies low to the ground, whimpering. A hunter's hound had bolted mid-chase, howling as if its soul had been scraped raw. The other animals followed suit barn cats refusing to prowl past dusk, horses snorting at unseen things, refusing to cross into the deeper woods.
Then came the smell.
A scent both rancid and sweet, clinging to the air like a presence. It drifted into town in lazy tendrils, curling into nostrils and settling thick on the tongue.
That was when they found the grave.
The Body in the Dirt
It was a group of young boys who first stumbled upon it a shallow patch of disturbed earth at the base of a gnarled oak. The kind of place the woods themselves had tried to reclaim, roots pressing through damp soil, leaves gathering like a burial shroud.
At first, it was just a glimpse a sliver of fabric caught in the undergrowth, a scrap of something that shouldn’t have been there. Then the wind shifted, and the soil loosened.
A hand.
Pale. Slack. Fingers half-curled as if grasping for something lost in the dark. The boys stood frozen, their breath fogging in the cool morning air, the weight of realization pressing upon them.
By the time the sheriff and his men arrived, the body had been fully unearthed.
Daniel Cross.
Or what was left of him.
The corpse was in an unnatural state no longer fresh, yet not fully decayed. His eyes, half-lidded, still stared upward, as if he'd seen something in the moment before death that had stolen the breath from his lungs. His mouth, slightly parted, seemed caught mid-whisper.
The wounds were precise a blade had opened him in places where no beast would bite. His ribs jutted unnaturally, as though something had pressed against them from within.
And yet, the soil around him was wrong. There were no claw marks, no signs of an animal digging him up. The dirt had shifted on its own, spilling away from the body like an offering.
Something had brought him back into the open.
Something that wanted him to be found.
Ravenswood Turns
From the moment Daniel’s corpse was carried back into town, the unease spread like a sickness.
Whispers snaked through the streets, curling between the wooden beams of old houses, seeping through cracked windowpanes.
"He should not have been found." "She buried him." "Something’s bringing him back."
The people of Ravenswood watched the trees differently now. They spoke in hushed tones, their gazes flickering toward the woods with suspicion, then quickly away as if afraid something might look back.
Doors that once stood open during the warm evenings were now barred at sunset. The sheriff doubled his patrols, but even he moved with caution, glancing over his shoulder when he thought no one was watching.
And then the deaths began.
One by one, the town began to bleed.
First, it was the undertaker found cold in his own home, his hands locked around his throat as if something unseen had gripped him.
Then it was the schoolteacher her body discovered slumped over her desk, ink smeared across her skin like claw marks.
And the worst part?
There were no footprints. No forced doors. No sounds in the night.
Just bodies, left behind like warnings.
As if something had crawled from the grave with unfinished business.
And Ravenswood was about to pay the price.
The air in Ravenswood thickened with fear. Shadows stretched longer than they should, winding like fingers across the dirt roads. The people whispered, but their voices never rose above the wind because the wind, too, had changed.
It carried whispers now.
They came at night, slipping beneath doors, settling in the rafters, slithering between the trees where Daniel Cross had been buried and found.
Some said it was just the town’s imagination. But the screams were real.
The Harvest Moon Murders
The third body was found beneath the old mill, sprawled across the damp floorboards like something left to rot.
Deputy Harris discovered it just before dawn a farmer named Eli Thatcher. His face was frozen in a twisted grimace of horror, his chest flayed open with a precision that sent bile up Harris’s throat. The blood had run in narrow, deliberate streams, pooling into symbols that no one dared decipher.
That was when the town lost its composure.
They gathered in the square, wild-eyed, sleep-starved, clutching torches and whispered prayers. Their breath steamed in the cold, but no one shivered. No one moved except to glance over their shoulders, as if expecting Daniel Cross himself to be standing there, smiling, waiting.
Sheriff Mulligan stood before them, his badge dull in the weak lantern glow. He had seen enough dead men to know when a killer was among them.
But this was different.
No footprints. No signs of struggle. Just bodies appearing, one by one, each more grotesque than the last.
“This ends tonight,” Mulligan declared. “We search the woods. We find whoever whatever is doing this.”
The Woods Take Their Own
They lit their lanterns, their torches, anything to keep the darkness at bay.
The search party moved in slow, careful steps, boots sinking into the damp forest floor. The trees pressed close, their bark blackened with old scars, their branches twisted into clawed shapes against the night sky.
Some swore the air breathed around them.
The deeper they walked, the worse the feeling became. The forest wasn’t empty. It watched. It listened. It waited.
Then, the smell returned.
A stench of rot and something worse something old, something that did not belong to the living.
Deputy Harris stumbled first, his torch flickering wildly as he caught himself against a tree. “Jesus,” he muttered. His breath hitched. His voice shook.
Because before them, in a patch of moonlight, lay four more bodies.
Fresh. Torn apart, but not devoured.
Arranged.
They formed a circle around something in the dirt. Something that should not have been there.
A hole.
A perfect, untouched hole empty.
And beside it, smeared in blood and mud, a single handprint. - too small to be Daniel's .
looks like a child's hand print
Ravenswood Will Never Sleep Again
The search party fled the woods that night. They did not look back.
The town shuttered itself in, doors locked, prayers muttered through trembling lips. But prayers were useless now.
Because Daniel had risen.
Not as a man.
Not even as a ghost.
Something worse. Something hungry.
And Ravenswood was his hunting ground.
when Can I Begin to Apply for Financial Aid at Baylor University?
Applying for financial aid at Baylor University is one of the most important steps for prospective and current students. Knowing when to begin can save you stress, increase your funding options, and help you prepare financially for college life. Below is a clear, updated guide based on Baylor’s official resources and timelines.
1. FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid)
The FAFSA is the starting point for most financial aid. It opens on October 1 every year. Baylor’s FAFSA code is 003545.
Students should file the FAFSA as soon as possible after October 1 to maximize eligibility for federal, state, and some institutional funds. (Baylor One Stop)
2. CSS Profile
Baylor also requires the CSS Profile for students seeking need-based institutional aid. Like the FAFSA, the CSS Profile opens on October 1.
The final deadline to submit the CSS Profile is February 1 for all Freshman and Transfer Admission plans. (Baylor Admissions)
3. Priority Deadlines
Meeting Baylor’s priority deadlines increases your chances of receiving the maximum aid package available. Key dates include:
- November 1 – Early Decision / Early Action priority deadline for scholarship and aid consideration.
- February 1 – Final priority deadline for FAFSA and CSS Profile for most undergraduates.
4. Other Important Dates
Additional steps include:
- June 1 – Deadline to arrange alternative loans for fall entrance to ensure aid is available before billing.
- Aid typically disburses about 10 days before classes begin, provided all requirements are complete. (Understanding the Aid Process)
5. Why Applying Early Matters
Submitting financial aid applications early helps in several ways:
- Ensures you do not miss out on limited institutional grants and scholarships.
- Gives you more time to resolve issues if extra documents or corrections are required.
- Reduces stress and provides a clearer financial picture well before enrollment deadlines.
Example Timeline for Fall 2025 Applicants
For a student entering Baylor in Fall 2025:
- October 1, 2024 – FAFSA and CSS Profile open.
- November 1, 2024 – Early Action / Decision scholarship deadline.
- February 1, 2025 – Priority deadline for maximum financial aid consideration.
- June 1, 2025 – Finalize alternative loans and accept aid offers.
For the latest updates and detailed guidance, visit Baylor’s official Financial Aid Timelines page.
