For another brief moment, the only sound was the group's own footsteaps and panicked breaths, and whatever murmuring they kept between them. Another scrape of something against wood signaled that whatever had stayed in the shadows just beyond the scrap-marked trees was still lingering, just out of the torchlight's reach. Soon came the sound of more feet, moving at the same pace, each step strangely light and only heard because of what lay on the forest floor. The scraping continued intermittenly, as if the thing randomly felt the urge to scrape up certain trees as it ran by them, just to make the group uneasy with that awful sound.
Finally, running parallel to them, motion! The thing continued to elude the light as best it could, but what could be glimpsed was dark, and gnarled. While somewhat humanoid, there were flashes of too many legs, too long of limbs, and a neck that was twisted, keeping even the shadow of a head out of view, and it's true height hard to gauge. While the thing continued to keep a couple trees' distance between them, just the fact that it's tangle of limbs could be seen at all meant it was getting closer, and as it weaved around trees to inch closer still, it let out another piercing shriek.