Manananggal

Manananggal is a hostile, nocturnal predator of Philippine folklore that leaves the ordinary shape of a sleeping village behind and hunts under moonlight. Smell: a sickly-sweet metallic tang—like overripe fruit touched with iron—hangs faintly on the breeze near its presence. Sound: a soft, leathery thrum of wings and a dry rasp, like palm fronds sliding past one another; at close range a subdued clicking of talons against tile. Temperature: the air around it turns unnaturally cold, a hollow pocket of night that prickles the skin and raises the hair. Field notes describe it as deliberate and patient, favoring the shadowed edges of nipa roofs and tall grasses, moving with a horrible precision that marks it as a specialist hunter rather than a mindless beast.