Title: One Who Pursues Chapter 1
Subtitle: The Night Meeting
Description: In the Southern town of Canterbrook, the four troubled teens Maxwell, Darius, Weston and Paisley banded together to form the Grizzly Riders gang with one aim in mind: get revenge on the Black Paragon, a faction who governs the town and allegedly terrorizes the families. They sketch their plan around a bonfire, smoking methamphetamine until their veins fill with rage sharper than any knife. But something’s watching them, something ravenous, omnipotent, coiled in the shadows: the crow perched on the sycamore tree branch. It continues following them through the neighborhood, which becomes entirely vacant by tomorrow's dawn. Eventually, what started as a revenge plot twists into flashbacks of darker times and drug-fueled hallucinations bleeding into reality until the line between paranoia and truth vanishes.

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**[*One Who Pursues*](https://archive.org/details/one-who-pursues_ridner/) © 2024–2025 by [James Ridner](https://substack.com/@jsridner) is licensed under [CC BY-NC 4.0](https://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).**
Subjects: southern gothic, psychological horror, dark thriller, suspense, existential horror, mystery, supernatural fiction, novella, serial fiction
Places: southern US states
Time periods: 21st Century