The Grey Man's fingers stretch into the mist. Someone is nearby. He knows this, because he has come to be. When alone, he is the gap in the snowstorm, the localized rarefication of the air; he watches and prowls, but he is an absence, nothing more.

But when his domain is intruded on, when the conditions are favorable, when the clouds are thick and the sun angles itself just right, he is given shape. When this happens, he opens his jaws and emits an infrasonic howl, something that bypasses the ear and goes straight for the gut. He unfurls his claws and slices through the fog.

He traverses the snowy peaks with great strides, his skin scorched by the freezing winds, his eyes burned away by the unfiltered sunlight. Given form, he is a shadow hunting who casts him. The cold is harsh. The intruder anchors him to this accursed mountain; he invades lands not made for him for the mere thrill of it. He causes incarnation. He causes frustration. His crimes are many, and they must be paid for in blood.

But this mountain is not made for the Grey Man, either. Formidable as he may be, the Ben Macdui is stronger still, and though these scurrying invaders find its stony slopes easy to traverse, he is not so blessed. He is not from here. He does not wish to be here. Each stride he takes is outdone by a single step of his quarry. The Grey Man always hunts in vain.

The sun keeps moving. The clouds blow in the wind. He will be free to fester in his solitude soon, to be a gap in a world that's not his, unable to live, incapable of dying.

And so he is contained again; a malevolent, but inoffensive force that watches, hates, and dreads its next awakening as much as the hikers do.