In 2017, I was a 21-year-old college student in the final semester of my education at a university in the southeastern part of South Dakota.

It was a far cry from my childhood in the greater St. Louis area of Missouri, a place that felt like a distant memory, eight long hours away from where I now

called home. During my time in South Dakota, I had the privilege of meeting people from various

backgrounds and cultures. One group that left a lasting impression on me were the Native Americans

from the Sioux tribe. Many late-night conversations in the library with my Sioux classmates

exposed me to the rich mythologies of their culture, tales of creatures like the Thunderbird and

Sasquatch. As a child, I had been obsessed with researching cryptids and watching shows like

Monster Quest and Mountain Monsters, but as I grew older, I became more skeptical of the stories I

once believed in. Conversations with my Sue friends were now driven more by intellectual curiosity,

although some of their stories began to creep into my nightmares. Stories of beings capable

of shape-shifting and mimicking your loved ones, enough to send shivers

down anyone's spine. Amidst my final semester, my girlfriend and I broke up, and it took a toll on

my mental health and schoolwork. She had been my first real relationship, and facing the prospect

of being alone, was a new and unsettling experience. My two friends,

Rich and Eric, my roommates, noticed my struggles. At first, they gave me space, but as days turned

into weeks, their concern grew. One fateful night, around 10 p.m., I was watching TV and sipping on a bang energy drink,

when Rich knocked on my door so loudly that my Star Blast-flavored liquid splattered onto the carpet.

With a mischievous grin, he exclaimed,

Come on, bro, we're going hunting.

Rich was a self-proclaimed ladiesman from the West Coast, towering at 6'5, and built like a

former offensive lineman, much like the three of us who had bonded through football.

I had hung up my cleats due to an injury the previous year, and both Rich and Eric had

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