33

Elara's fingers trembled around the key as she reached the cabin. The forest behind her was an abyss of silence, the kind that pressed against the eardrums and made her hyper-aware of every breath, every heartbeat. She glanced over her shoulder one last time, searching for any sign of movement, but the path she had fled down was empty.

Still, she felt watched.

The cabin loomed before her, its wooden frame darkened by years of neglect. The roof sagged slightly, the shutters hung loose, and ivy coiled around the porch railings like silent sentinels. It was the only place that held answers, yet every instinct screamed at her not to go inside.

She ignored the fear and stepped up onto the porch. The wood groaned under her weight.

The book against her back was silent now, but she could still feel its presence, its watchful energy, as though waiting to see what she would do next. The key felt like ice in her palm, heavier than before, as if resisting what was to come.

She slipped it into the lock of the cabin door and turned. A sharp click echoed through the night.

Inside, dust filled the air, illuminated by the pale slant of moonlight filtering through the cracked windows. The scent of aged wood and something metallic lingered—a scent that sent a shiver down her spine. She stepped forward, past the overturned chairs and forgotten remnants of a life abandoned.

The study was hidden beneath the floorboards. Her mother had never spoken of it, never acknowledged its existence, but Elara had found it years ago when she was still a child, playing in the cabin during long summers. She had never been able to open the door back then. Now, she had the key.

She crouched down, running her fingers along the worn wooden panels until she found the hidden groove. With a steady pull, she lifted the section of the floor, revealing a narrow, descending staircase. The air that rose from below was thick and stale, as though the room beneath had been sealed away for lifetimes.

She hesitated. Something about this moment felt irreversible.

A whisper—so soft it could have been her imagination—brushed against the edges of her mind. "Turn back."

Her breath hitched. She forced herself to move, stepping carefully down into the darkness.

The space beneath the cabin was smaller than she remembered, or maybe her childhood memory had made it seem larger. A single desk sat in the center, its surface covered in yellowed papers, books with cracked spines, and a single, rusted dagger. Shelves lined the walls, filled with glass jars that contained substances she couldn't—and didn't want to—identify.

And there, on the desk, lay another book.

This one was old, its cover bound in deep green leather, embossed with a familiar sigil. The same sigil that pulsed on the book she carried.

She approached cautiously, reaching out to brush her fingers along its surface. The moment she touched it, a jolt of energy shot up her arm. The candlelight in the room flickered violently before steadying.

She knew, without a doubt, that this book belonged to her mother.

Elara opened it. The pages were filled with symbols, diagrams, and scrawled notes written in a language that made her head ache. But near the back, there were passages in words she could understand.

The awakening is dangerous if incomplete. Without the anchor, the body becomes unstable, unraveling into what it was before it was formed.

Elara's stomach twisted. The awakening. That's what had happened to her in the cavern. The power she had wielded—the book's energy, the way she had commanded the shadows to dissolve—had been part of it.

If the key is taken before the anchor is secured, the process cannot hold.

Her breath hitched. The key. The very thing she had retrieved was part of this ritual, and yet… something was missing.

Without the tether, the body will consume itself.

A chill crept up her spine. Consume itself.

Her hands went cold. The pulsing energy in her veins, the way her body had ached, the blinding exhaustion after using the book's power—it wasn't just fatigue. It was her own being unraveling, breaking apart piece by piece.

The key was never the solution. It was only half of it.

She had to find the anchor.

Before it was too late.

A scraping sound pulled her from her thoughts. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.

She wasn't alone.

Slowly, she turned toward the staircase, her pulse hammering. The shadows at the top of the stairs were no longer still. They shifted, pulsed, as if something stood just beyond the threshold, watching.

A hand—blackened, with long, clawed fingers—gripped the edge of the open floorboard.

Elara moved before she could think. She grabbed the dagger from the desk, its weight foreign in her hands, and spun just as the figure began descending into the hidden room.

It wasn't the presence from the forest. This was something else—something twisted. Its face was half-formed, shifting between human and something darker. Its eyes, burning like embers, locked onto her with a hunger that sent a wave of nausea through her gut.

It's here for the book.

She didn't wait to find out what would happen if it reached her. With a deep breath, she raised the dagger and whispered the only word that came to her mind.

"Command."

The book strapped to her back burned with heat, and in an instant, the room was flooded with light.

The creature shrieked, recoiling from the force of it, its form flickering like a flame in the wind. The light expanded outward, swallowing the study, the staircase, the cabin above—

Then everything went dark.

When Elara awoke, she was lying on the floor of the cabin's main room. The trapdoor to the study was sealed once more, as if it had never been opened.

She sat up, her head pounding. The book was still strapped to her back. The key still clutched in her fingers.

But the other book—the one belonging to her mother—was gone.

Her breath came in sharp gasps as she scanned the room. There was no sign of the creature. No sign that anything had happened at all.

Except for one thing.

Carved into the wooden floor, right where the study entrance had been, was a single word.

Run.