I, the screenwriter, have experienced a resurgence of inspiration.

The river in the photo is very clean, and the swans are still in a graceful posture.

But in the upper right corner of the sky, there was a long, blurry black shadow.

Like an blurry afterimage of a bird in flight, so fast that it leaves only a faint trace on the photograph.

"What?! It's burnt!"

Fei Meng muttered something, thinking it was because her hand was shaking, and raised her hand to take another picture.

"Holy shit!!"

Just then, a gasp suddenly rang out from the crowd; the voice of the local white man walking his dog was filled with fear:

"What the hell is that up there?!"

The crowd's attention was instantly drawn to it.

Dozens of people looked up at the sky in unison.

Then, a cacophony of gasps erupted, a mixture of several languages, as noisy as a pot of boiling water:

"すごい!大きな鸫?...いや, violative! What's the matter?!"

(Wow! What a huge eagle? No, wait, what is that?!)

"Regarde, c'est un avion? Non, la forme est trop bizarre, et il vole beaucoup trop vite."

(Look, is that an airplane? No, the shape is too strange, and it's flying too fast.)

"Oh my god, what is that? It's not a bird at all!"

Fei Meng also raised her head.

The dark figure was flying at an extremely fast speed from the direction of the pine forest peatland.

In just over ten seconds, the thing transformed from a small black dot in the distance into a clear outline.

It's not an eagle, nor is it an airplane.

It is larger than the largest golden eagle.

It is about 1.2 meters tall and has a wingspan of 2.5 meters. Instead of feathered wings, it has leathery membranous wings like a bat.

It, or rather this "creature," has a long, thin horse's head, a pure black mane, and two scarlet vertical pupils in its eyes.

Its torso resembles that of a wild beast, covered in short, stiff black fur.

Its forelimbs are animal claws with hooked sharp claws, while its hind limbs are donkey hooves.

Most importantly, it has a long, forked, serpentine tail trailing behind it.

The trail was deathly silent for two seconds.

Everyone froze in place.

Holding up their phones, feeding the swans, walking their dogs, painting, performing... everyone was gaping, heads tilted back, their minds blank.

No one could understand how a creature that clearly didn't belong to this world could suddenly appear in reality.

"Woof woof woof! Woof woof woof woof!"

The golden retriever barked loudly, tucked its tail between its legs, and ran away desperately. The white man reacted immediately, abandoning the dog and sprinting towards the building.

"Monster!!! HELP!!"

But he was too late.

The thing hovering in the air suddenly folded its wings and, like a black lightning bolt, swooped straight down toward the trail!

A white male was taken to a high altitude.

"Run!!"

Someone let out a heart-wrenching scream.

The crowd erupted in a commotion as the Latino mother pushing the stroller screamed, clutching her child tightly in her arms, and rushed toward a roadside coffee shop.

The Japanese women were so frightened that they dropped their Polaroid cameras on the ground and huddled together to hide.

The French couple forgot about taking pictures and held hands, shrinking back into the crowd.

Fei Meng subconsciously took two steps back, but her finger reflexively pressed the record button on the camera—

Her instincts as a media student overcame her fear; she even forgot to run, trembling as she raised her camera, the lens relentlessly tracking the dark figure.

That thing was too fast.

"laugh--"

"AHHHH——!!"

The man, who was lifted high into the air, let out a heart-wrenching scream as he struggled desperately, suspended in mid-air.

[Giggle giggle—]

The thing let out inhuman laughter, flapped its wings, and carried the man higher and higher.

Ten meters, twenty meters, until even the man's screams became faint.

The people below looked up at the tiny figure in mid-air, their faces pale, almost forgetting to scream.

Fei Meng's hand holding the camera was shaking, and the image in the lens was shaky.

Then, she saw a scene she would never forget for the rest of her life:

The monster's claws suddenly tightened.

"Click—"

A clear sound of bones cracking fell from mid-air, as crisp as snapping a dry twig.

The man's screams abruptly stopped.

The next second, red "rain" fell from the sky.

Warm, smelly blood.

Mixed with scraps of meat and cloth, it dripped onto the walkway, railings, and the clothes and hair of tourists.

Like a sudden, blood-red rain shower.

"Clatter".

A piece of meat crashed into the latte cup in the French girl's hand.

It is a section of a human finger.

The cross-section was a bloody mess, and a ring was still attached to it.

It just floated and sank in the cup.

"Aa ...

……

……

The commotion on the riverbank seemed to please the monster.

It glanced at the humans hiding inside the building, circled in the air once, still holding the mangled corpse in its claws, and finally let out a sharp screech, as if in defiance:

[Hissing sounds]

Then, it flapped its membranous wings, turned, and flew towards the pine forest peatland at a speed as fast as a black lightning bolt.

All that remained was a wrecked trail and a group of terrified, trembling survivors.

"What the hell is that damn thing?! The Jersey Devil? Isn't it fake?!"

Fei Meng leaned against the railing, then slid down the pillar to the ground, her face contorted in a grim expression.

"Nobody told me that studying abroad meant not only protecting myself from gunfire, but also from demons!"

The camera was still in her hand, with the recording button always on.

The entire process was filmed, from the demon swooping down, grabbing people, to crushing them in mid-air, it was all clearly captured.

Fei Meng turned off the recording with trembling hands, opened the social media app, and posted the video.

The caption was only one sentence long, and the letters were so difficult to type:

"Jersey Devil is real. A man died right in front of me. Batgate River, NJ."

(The legend of the Jersey Devil is true. A man died right in front of me, in the Buttergate River, New Jersey.)

Fei Meng had no idea that this video would garner 40 million views in the next hour and a half, top the trending searches across the United States, and eventually cause a sensation across the entire North American internet.

Little did she know, this was just the beginning.

Nobody knows.

……

……

……

West Texas, on the Rio Grande River.

The midday sun beat down fiercely, and a dry, hot wind swept across the wilderness, carrying sand and dust.

This is the US-Mexico border. The north bank of the river is Texas, USA, and the south bank is Coahuila, Mexico.

The border stretches long and winding, with vast oak forests left unattended.

Therefore, illegal immigrants often wade across the river through the shallows here, and various bizarre disappearances have occurred.

……

Martha Colvin rode her chestnut horse "Cowboy" slowly along the ranch's wire fence.

She is 42 years old and owns this 300-acre ranch.

Her husband was shot and killed by drug traffickers while on patrol at the border five years ago.

She single-handedly tends this ranch, raising over two hundred Angus cattle, which are known for their strong temperament.

She was wearing a faded denim shirt, jeans tucked into cowboy boots, and a Remington 870 shotgun slung across her waist.

The gun handle was polished to a shine, and Martha took it with her wherever she went.

The border is not peaceful.

There are all sorts of people involved: smugglers, drug traffickers, cattle thieves.

Without some tough equipment, one person simply couldn't protect such a large ranch.

She came today to inspect the northern fence, as the herdsmen reported yesterday that a hole had been cut in the fence at the northwest corner.

—There might be stowaways who have broken in; she has to come and check.

The cowboy walked slowly, his hooves leaving a trail of shallow marks on the sand.

When they reached the vicinity of the oak grove near the river, Martha suddenly pulled on the reins.

An old white RV was parked by the edge of the woods, its body rusted and its paint faded.

The car doors were wide open, swaying back and forth in the wind, making a grating "creak, creak" sound.

There were many things scattered around the RV:

A pink children's backpack, a few diapers, half a bag of corn tortillas, and a broken water bottle.

Things were scattered all over the floor in a mess, as if the owner had left in a great hurry and hadn't even bothered to take their luggage.

Martha placed her right hand directly on the gun handle at her waist, and cocked it with a "click".

She has seen many people smuggling themselves into the country, most of them doing so secretly.

But it's rare to leave luggage scattered on the ground unless there's an emergency, or... danger.

Is anyone there?

Martha's voice echoed through the empty valley, carried by the wind to the river's surface.

no respond.

The wind rustled through the reeds, and the river flowed gurglingly.

The cowboy seemed to sense something, scratched his hooves with slight unease, and let out a low hiss towards the river.

Martha dismounted and tied the reins to the oak tree beside her.

She gripped the shotgun tightly and carefully walked towards the RV.

The RV was even more chaotic.

The bed was open, the blankets were crumpled and thrown on the floor, and there were unfinished burritos on the small table.

The driver's side door was open, and the key was still in the lock.

It's like a family was eating in the car one second, and then suddenly something dragged them out.

They left in such a hurry that they didn't even take the keys out of the lock.

Martha's heart sank.

She was about to leave to call the police when she suddenly heard crying.

It was a man's crying, with a heavy Mexican accent, broken and intermittent, as if he was about to die.

Martha immediately became alert, picked up her shotgun, and stepped into the reeds.

The reeds grew taller than a person, so dense that they were impenetrable.

The mud beneath my feet was getting softer and softer, sticky to the touch, damp with river water, and the fishy smell was getting stronger.

After walking for about two minutes, the reeds came to an end, and in front of them was a wide backwater.

Then, Martha saw the man.

He squatted on the muddy ground by the river, holding his head and crying his heart out.

He looked to be in his early thirties at most, with a scraggly beard, tattered clothes, and scraped knees and elbows covered in mud and blood.

Hearing footsteps, the man suddenly looked up.

He was startled when he saw the gun in Martha's hand, but then, as if seeing a savior, he scrambled over and fell to his knees in the mud with a thud. Grabbing Martha's cowboy boots, he cried out in Spanish:

"Señora! Por favor, ayúdeme! Mis hijos…una mujer de blanco se los llevó al río!"

(Madam! Please help me! My children... A woman in white led them into the river!)

He cried so hard he couldn't breathe, and his words were incoherent, repeating over and over again "the woman in the white dress," "she took the child away," and "in the water."

It took Martha a long time to piece together what had happened.

The man's name is Carlos, he is thirty-two years old, and he comes from a small town in northern Mexico.

After his family's farm was burned down by the gangsters, he walked for three days and three nights with his seven-year-old son Diego and five-year-old daughter Sofia before finally reaching the Rio Grande River.

I originally wanted to smuggle myself into the United States and seek refuge with my cousin in Houston, Texas, to find a way to survive.

They were resting next to the RV when the two children ran to the river to play in the water while he was unpacking his luggage.

He had just stuffed his passport into his bag when he heard the children crying. He ran over and saw a woman in a white dress taking two children away.

He wanted to chase after her, but when he looked up, the woman had already disappeared.

……

……

"The woman in white?" Martha frowned. "What does she look like? Did you get a good look at her?"

Carlos trembled even more violently, his face filled with fear, his voice shaking: "No lo vi bien… estaba de espaldas, el pelo muy largo, el vestido mojado… se veía como si estuviera hinchada…"

(I didn't see clearly... she had her back to me, her hair was very long, and her dress was wet... it looked like it was soaked...)

He pointed to the deepest backwater of the river, his voice cracking: "Allí… ella está allí ahora mismo…"

(There...she's still there...)

Martha followed the direction he pointed.

The surface of the backwater bay was very calm, without a ripple. The turbid river water was yellowish-brown, and not a single fish could be seen.

Martha found the woman.

She stood in waist-deep water, her back to the shore.

She was wearing a long white dress, the hem of which was completely submerged in water and clung wetly to her legs.

Her long, black hair hung down, obscuring her entire face, leaving only a glimpse of her pale, swollen chin.

Her two hands were stretched out in the water, pressing down on her two small heads, which floated up and down in the water.

There are two children.

Diego and Sofia.

Their struggles had weakened considerably; their little hands thrashed helplessly at the water's surface, and they were on the verge of coming to a stop.

"Hey! Stop!"

Without a second thought, Martha raised her shotgun and fired a shot into the sky.

"Bang!"

The loud gunshot echoed through the valley, startling a flock of waterbirds hiding in the reeds, which flapped their wings and flew away into the distance.

But the woman in white seemed not to hear, remaining motionless.

Martha cursed.

He's not an illegal immigrant, he's a madman!

It's impossible for a normal person to be completely unresponsive to gunshots.

She gritted her teeth, lowered the gun, and aimed it at the woman's back.

"I'm warning you! Let go of the child! Or I'll shoot!"

Then she shouted it again in Spanish, her voice carrying an undeniable force.

The woman still didn't move.

Martha pulled the trigger immediately.

"Bang!"

Shotguns are extremely powerful, firing buckshot in a fan shape.

At a distance of ten meters, with her unparalleled marksmanship, there was absolutely no way she could miss.

But what happened next was inexplicable to Martha.

The lead bullet pierced through the woman's body as if passing through a phantom, and then struck the river behind her, splashing water everywhere.

The woman was unharmed.

She didn't even sway once.

The man beside him slumped to the ground, muttering to himself, his eyes glazed over: "Es La Llorona… es ella… la que se lleva a los niños…"

(It's Larona...it's her...that ghost who specifically takes away children...)

Just then, the woman in white in the river slowly turned around.

Martha's breath caught in her throat.

That was definitely not a human face.

Her skin was swollen and pale, puffy and shiny, like a corpse that had been submerged in water for months.

Its facial features were blurred; its eyes had no pupils or whites, but rather two murky grayish-white gloomy masses, as if covered by a layer of mist.

Her mouth was stretched wide, all the way to her ears, looking like she was laughing, but also like she was crying.

Suddenly, a sharp wail exploded in Martha's ears:

[Ahhhhh—]

A sharp voice rang directly in my mind.

The woman's cries were incredibly shrill, filled with heart-wrenching hatred.

Martha groaned, nearly losing her balance, her facial muscles twitching uncontrollably.

In that very instant.

The woman in white in the river transformed into a semi-transparent white phantom and flew straight towards Martha!

"Bang!"

"Bang!"

"Bang!"