The Tin Toy

Deep in the October woods, two teenage friends discover an abandoned cabin that shouldn't exist. Jake's been hiking these trails since childhood—he knows every path, every creek bed, every fallen tree for miles. But this cabin? This path? He's never seen them before.

Inside the rotting structure, among rusted tools and water-damaged newspapers from another century, Jake finds a tin toy soldier. Heavy. Detailed. Clearly old. Worth something, probably. He slips it into his pocket.

That night, a figure appears in his bedroom.

Small. The size of a child. Moving with a step-and-drag rhythm that sounds wrong in the darkness. Its skin has dried and pulled tight against ancient bones, its clothes tattered wool from another era, its eyes milky white pools that see everything.

It points at the tin toy. Then at Jake.

"Mine."