Chapter 2: The Book of Forbidden Stars

Lena didn't sleep that night.

She couldn't. The image of Elias, his words lingering like a cold breath on her skin, kept her awake. "Something terrible is coming," he had said. "The Hollow Sky is waking." What did he mean by that? And why had he claimed to have been dead?

The air outside had been thick with mist, and she couldn't shake the feeling that something was watching her from the shadows, waiting. She had to understand. She had to find answers. But where to start? The bookstore was a maze of forgotten pages and obscure texts—how could she possibly know where to look?

Her father had always kept the more unusual books locked away, deep within the basement of the store, but he hadn't ever been the type to speak about them. He rarely discussed the shop's past, let alone the more esoteric volumes he'd collected over the years.

Lena paced restlessly through the store, the ticking of the ancient clock overhead marking each agonizing minute. She glanced at the dim lanterns that hung by the walls, their feeble light offering little comfort. She wasn't sure why, but something about the store seemed off tonight—darker, heavier. The shadows clung to corners as if alive, watching her every move.

She moved toward the back room. There, beneath a pile of old maps and loose papers, was the heavy, locked chest. Her father had placed it there years ago, and Lena had never dared to open it. It was his most precious possession.

Until tonight.

Her heart raced as she crouched by the chest, examining the intricate carvings that decorated its sides. The symbols, she realized, weren't just decorative—they were familiar, somehow, like the patterns she had seen in the strange book Elias had mentioned. The book of stars.

Lena swallowed hard and reached for the small iron key she had stolen from her father's desk earlier that day. With trembling hands, she inserted the key into the lock. A soft click echoed in the room, followed by a rush of stale air as the chest creaked open.

Inside lay a small, leather-bound tome. The cover was cracked, and the pages seemed to be made of a brittle parchment that had yellowed with age. The spine, while worn, remained intact. The book was old—very old.

Her fingers hovered over the cover for a moment before she opened it.

Inside was a map. A map of the stars.

Lena frowned. This wasn't the kind of map you'd find in a school book or a travel guide. The constellations were all wrong. The stars were not arranged as she had seen them from Ashenreach, nor were they any patterns she recognized.

The writing on the page was in a script she had never seen before, something ancient and flowing. She strained her eyes, trying to decipher it, but the letters twisted before her, shifting like living things.

The further she read, the more the world around her seemed to blur. She felt a growing sense of unease, as though the air itself were thickening, pressing in on her chest. She closed the book quickly, but the strange symbols seemed to burn into her mind, like they were seeping into her very being.

She could feel the weight of something ancient, something cosmic, lying behind the words. It was as if the very stars themselves had been shifted, their purpose obscured. Lena had always believed that the constellations were constant, that they were unchanging, but the truth in her father's book suggested otherwise.

A faint whisper echoed through the room, like a breeze stirring old paper. It was soft, at first, but as Lena tried to make sense of the words, it grew louder.

"The sky has shifted, and the stars call to us. There is no escape from the Hollow. It is too late to stop what has begun."

Lena's hands trembled as she set the book down. It felt as though something had just brushed past her ear, cold and unseen, an invisible presence lurking at the edges of her vision.

Her father had known. He had been keeping something from her. Something far darker than she had ever imagined.

She couldn't stay here. The book… it wasn't just a collection of ancient knowledge. It was a map to something more—something buried deep beneath Ashenreach.

But what?

Lena stood up abruptly, the book still open in her hands. She needed answers, and she needed them fast. The whisper in her mind continued to grow, the sensation of being watched becoming unbearable.

Suddenly, there was a sound—a heavy thud from the floor above.

Lena froze, her blood running cold.

It came again—this time louder, more distinct.

A scraping sound, like something dragging across wood.

And then a voice. Her father's voice.

"Lena…"

She was too late. Isaac Grayson had returned.

Her pulse quickened as she grabbed the book and shoved it into the satchel at her side. She rushed toward the stairs, her footfalls echoing in the silent store. The light from the lanterns flickered erratically as she ascended.

At the top of the stairs, she stopped. Her father's study door was ajar, and through the crack, she could see him standing in the middle of the room, facing away from her. His hands were gripping the edge of the desk, and his body was stiff, as if locked in place.

"Dad?" Lena called, her voice shaking.

Isaac didn't respond.

She stepped closer, her breath shallow. "Dad, what's going on?"

He didn't turn around. His voice, when it came, was hollow, distant. "You shouldn't have come here, Lena."

The air around her seemed to grow heavier, like something was pressing in on the very walls of the house.

Lena felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Something was wrong.

"Dad…" she repeated, reaching for the door.

But before she could open it, a deep rumble vibrated through the floor. The room trembled.

And then, without warning, the door flew open, revealing not her father, but something else. Something that stood where Isaac had once been.

A figure—shadowed, almost featureless—loomed in the doorway. It wasn't human. The proportions were wrong. The shape was… wrong. Its presence seemed to stretch the very air, warping the room around it.

Lena gasped and stumbled backward. The book fell from her hands, its pages fluttering in the air like wings of a trapped bird.

The thing in the doorway stepped forward.

Its eyes, if they could be called eyes, were dark pits, endless voids that seemed to draw in the dim light. It spoke—its voice low, resonating with a hum that seemed to vibrate in her chest.

"You have awakened it," it said. "And now, the Hollow Sky will consume you all."

Lena tried to scream, but no sound came. The world around her seemed to blur, and the shadows pressed in closer. The last thing she saw before everything went dark was the book lying on the floor, its pages turning on their own, as though it were alive, whispering secrets she was not meant to hear.