The Darkness Return

Days passed, but Amina couldn't shake the feeling that danger was lurking. She had destroyed the artifact, and yet she felt a deep sense of foreboding. The land was healing, yes, but at what cost? The whispers had stopped, but a different voice—darker, more insistent—echoed in the back of her mind.

The villagers, once celebrating their newfound peace, had grown uneasy. No one spoke of it aloud, but Amina could feel it in the air: something was coming. She felt the pull of the land—the remnants of the artifact's energy—and with it, an impending darkness.

Then, one evening, as the sun set over the savannah, the ground began to tremble. It was subtle at first—just a small shift beneath her feet. But the vibrations quickly grew stronger, shaking the entire village. The sky darkened, and an eerie silence fell over everything.

Amina's breath caught in her throat. She could feel it—the presence of something ancient, something powerful. And then, from the horizon, she saw it. Figures emerging from the shadows, their silhouettes tall and menacing.

They had come.

The figures that emerged from the shadows The tremors grew stronger, rolling through the village like a silent warning. That eerie silence stretched impossibly long, pressing down on Amina's chest like a weight she couldn't shake. She stood frozen, her breath shallow, watching as the figures emerged from the distant horizon, moving with an unsettling purpose.

The first shape stepped into the fading light of the setting sun, and Amina's blood ran cold.

They were cloaked in darkness-not just the absence of light, but something deeper, something unnatural. The figures didn't walk like ordinary men; they glided, their bodies shifting and flickering, as if they weren't entirely bound to this world.

Amina's fingers twitched toward the hilt of the dagger at her waist, but she didn't draw it. Not yet.