V. THE BROTHERS TURN ON EACH OTHER
What happened next became one of the most re-watched sports-media moments of the decade.
Jason slammed his headphones down.
“This is insane. We shouldn’t have taken that call. We should have cut it the second he started talking about monsters.”
Travis stood abruptly. “He’s in danger, Jason!”
“We don’t know that! He could be unstable. He could be lying. Or he could be hallucinating!”
“And what if he’s not?” Travis snapped.
Jason stared at him, incredulous. “You seriously think some… creature threatened him? You think that’s connected to you somehow?”
“I don’t know what to think!” Travis shouted.
The chat froze.
The crew stopped moving.
Tension hung like a metal wire pulled to breaking.
Jason lowered his voice—not calmer, just quieter. “People are going to think you had something to do with this.”
“People are already thinking that!”
“And you’re feeding it by acting like this!”
“That man is scared!” Travis barked. “Something happened to him, and instead of dismissing him, maybe we should try listening!”
Jason stepped forward, eyes blazing. “You’re letting your guilt talk.”
“What guilt?”
“You know damn well there are people in your orbit who talk big. Who act reckless. Who think they’re invincible because they orbit a star.”
Travis recoiled like he’d been punched.
“Are you saying someone I know threatened him?”
“I’m saying,” Jason replied, “that fame attracts shadows. And sometimes those shadows act in your name, whether you like it or not.”
“That’s—” Travis shook his head. “Unfair. And you know it.”
Jason exhaled hard. “There’s a difference between being unfair and being realistic.”
“So now you think I’m connected to this?”
“I think,” Jason said carefully, “we don’t know the whole picture.”
Travis’s voice cracked. “You think I’m lying to you.”
“I think you’re hiding from the possibility that someone you trust did something horrible.”
Travis closed his eyes. “I can’t—Jason, I would never—”
“I didn’t say you would,” Jason said softly. “But someone else might.”
The argument froze there, suspended in a silence more painful than their shouting.
For the first time in their on-air lives, the Kelce brothers looked like strangers.
VI. THE MAN HUNT BEGINS
While social media tore itself apart, the search for Elias Pryce launched at an unprecedented scale.
The NFL issued a statement denying involvement in any intimidation.
Kansas City officials claimed no knowledge of threats.
Players defended Travis publicly.
Former coworkers defended Elias privately.
The police tried to track the call.
It pinged from a tower near Appalachian forestland—miles of remote wilderness.
Jason left the studio first, shaken.
Travis stayed behind, pacing like a caged animal.
He called Elias’s closest friend. No answer.
He called a team security contact. Nothing new.
He called Marcella back in. “Pull everything you have on the call. Every sound.”
“What are you looking for?” she asked gently.
Travis swallowed hard.
“I’m not sure.”
But he knew the trembling in Elias’s voice wasn’t fake.
He knew the scream wasn’t performed.
And the sound before the call ended—the low, unnatural rumble—gnawed at him like teeth.
VII. INTO THE WOODS
Night fell before search teams mobilized.
But one person didn’t wait for them.
Jason.
Not because he believed the creature story—he didn’t.
Not because he trusted Elias—he barely remembered the man.
But because he needed to fix what had cracked between him and his brother. Because he needed to do something other than sit in the storm of speculation. Because action felt safer than silence.
He drove through the winding Pennsylvania backroads, headlights slicing the darkness until he reached the first ranger outpost near the coordinates police had released. He showed his ID. They tried to turn him away.
He went anyway.
Hours later, deep in the woods, he started hearing things.
Footsteps that didn’t match his.
Branches breaking without wind.
The faint echo of a voice—Elias? Or memory?
And then, something else.
A sound he’d heard earlier—through a phone line—distorted, distant, heavy, alive.
Jason froze.
But he didn’t run.
“Elias?” he called. “If you’re out here—I’m here to help!”
No reply.
Only breathing.
Not his own.
Behind him.
VIII. THE THING IN THE TREES
Jason turned slowly.
And the breath caught in his throat.
The creature—if that word even began to describe it—stood half-hidden behind an oak trunk, its shape shifting subtly with the shadows. Tall, but not hulking. Quiet, but not timid.
Its eyes glowed faintly, amber and cold.
Jason’s instinct screamed to run.
His legs refused.
It tilted its head—the same gesture Elias had described.
“Who are you?” Jason whispered.
The creature stepped forward.
Its form changed slightly with the movement, like its outline wasn’t fixed.
Like it chose what shape it wanted to be.
“Stay back!” Jason said, voice cracking.
The creature did the opposite.
Jason stumbled, boots sliding in mud.
And then—
A voice behind him whispered:
“Don’t move.”
Elias Pryce stepped from behind a cluster of trees, pale, shaking, scratched from thorns and brush.
“It doesn’t attack if you don’t run,” he said.
Jason stared at him, breathless. “What the hell is it?”
“I don’t know,” Elias whispered. “But it started following me after I reported the threats.”
Jason turned back to the creature.
It blinked.
“You think this thing is connected to the threats?” he asked.
Elias swallowed. “I think someone wanted me scared. Really scared. And then… this showed up. I don’t know if it’s trained. Or summoned. Or just attracted. But it knows when I’m afraid.”
Jason didn’t know whether to believe him.
Didn’t know whether to scream for help.
Didn’t know whether the creature understood every word.
But he knew one thing:
Whatever was happening here was far bigger than accusations, PR crises, or social media theories.
IX. THE BROTHER WHO WOULD NOT WAIT
Travis arrived two hours later.
He had insisted on joining the official search party, but when they moved too slow—protocol, risk assessments, all the things he didn’t have patience for tonight—he broke away with a flashlight and a fury he hadn’t felt since losing a playoff berth.
He found Jason sitting on a rock near a dying campfire, head in his hands.
Jason looked up.
His face was white.
“I found him,” he said.
Travis exhaled with relief. “Is he okay? Is he—?”
Jason held up a hand.
Then he whispered:
“But we’re not alone out here.”
Travis frowned. “What do you—”
A branch cracked behind them.
The creature slid into view.
Travis’s heart plummeted into his stomach.
“What the hell—” he whispered.
Jason didn’t move. “It won’t attack if we stay calm.”
“HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT?”
“Because Elias said so.”
Elias stepped from the shadows, trembling.
“I didn’t lie,” he said softly. “But I didn’t understand. Someone wanted me to believe Travis was connected. Someone wanted to isolate me. And this thing—whatever it is—seems to show up whenever fear spikes. Like it feeds on it.”
The brothers exchanged a horrified look.
“Are you saying,” Travis whispered, “this thing reacts to threats?”
“Or to people who think they’re in danger,” Elias replied. “Someone manipulated me. Made me think the danger was coming from you. But the real danger… was following me the whole time.”
As if responding to its name, the creature stepped closer.
Jason stood first.
Travis followed.
“Back away slowly,” Jason said.
“No sudden movements,” Elias added.
They moved in unison—three men in the dark, backs to the unknown, breaths tight, hearts pounding.
The creature watched.
Tilted its head again.
Then—just as silently as it had appeared—it slipped behind a tree…
And disappeared.
Not walked away.
Not ran.
But simply vanished, as if dissolving into the forest.
X. THE TRUTH THAT NO ONE COULD TELL
By dawn, rangers found the three men near the trailhead.
They were shaken, exhausted, filthy.
But alive.
The official report said Elias Pryce had suffered a stress-induced hallucination episode triggered by online harassment. The forest noises had amplified his fear. The “creature” was attributed to shadows, fear, and exhaustion.
Jason and Travis publicly supported the report.
Because the truth—that something unexplainable had stalked them—would be treated as delusion, not evidence.
Elias retracted his accusation days later, stating he had been manipulated by an anonymous online account pretending to know intimate details about his workplace.
The Kelce brothers resumed their show.
They joked again.
They argued again.
They healed.
But something had changed.
In the pauses between topics.
In the tightness behind their laughs.
In the way they both sometimes glanced toward the studio door, as if expecting someone—or something—to be standing there.
And occasionally, when the cameras were off, one brother would ask the other:
“You saw it too, right?”
And the other would reply:
“Yeah. I did.”
XI. THE FOREST WAITS
Months later, hikers reported strange sightings in those same Pennsylvania woods: glowing eyes, shifting shadows, the feeling of being watched.
Officials dismissed the claims.
But somewhere deep among the old trees, a shape moved between the trunks—silent, aware, hungry for fear.
And when it paused beside a fallen log, its amber eyes reflected the memory of three men who had found each other in the dark.
