Faded Fire

The breath she heard beyond the door rooted Isabelle to the spot.

Every instinct in her body screamed to run, but she forced her trembling hand to the rusted knob and twisted.

The door groaned open slowly, revealing the hollowed chamber beyond.

It was colder here—colder than it should have been for spring. The low ceiling dripped with condensation. Shadows clung to the walls like parasites. Her flashlight struggled against the darkness, the beam dim and choked.

The room had been a storage area once, perhaps. Now, it was something else entirely.

The first thing she noticed was the smell—charred paper, old wax, and something faintly coppery.

The second thing: the floor, scattered with the remnants of fire.

Melted candles were fused into the stone at odd angles, the wax forming pale tumors on the floor. Blackened scraps of paper littered the room, so brittle they disintegrated if her foot brushed them.

But some had survived.

Isabelle moved carefully through the wreckage, every step sending a whisper of ash into the air.

In the center of the room, half-buried under a collapsed metal rack, was a pile of singed documents.

Kneeling, Isabelle pushed aside a cracked candlestick and pulled a sheet free. It tore down the middle, but she could still make out the top half: neat columns of names, typed in tiny, methodical font.

A list.

A long one.

Her eyes darted across the smudged ink.

Marie LeClair. Odette Fournier. Celine Dubois.

Names she knew. Names from the missing persons database. Some had been dismissed as runaways. Others, simply forgotten.

She thumbed through more sheets, her stomach knotting tighter with every name.

And then she saw it.

At the top of a new page, scorched but still legible:

Vivienne Moreau.

Her fingers froze.

Vivienne wasn't just part of the mystery. She had been first.

First chosen. First taken. First marked.

Heart hammering, Isabelle flipped the sheet over.

More names followed, in endless, soul-crushing procession.

She scanned the rows, numb, until her gaze stumbled onto one that made the world lurch sideways:

Isabelle Fontaine.

Her name.

Near the bottom.

Typed in the same sterile, emotionless font.

As if she were nothing more than an entry in a ledger.

The flashlight shook in her hand.

A low crackling noise broke the silence—a sheet of paper shifting in the breeze from the open cellar door. Isabelle's light caught on something odd: a gleam of wet ink. Fresh. Alive.

She crawled toward it.

A single name had been circled in thick, dark ink—so new it glistened under her light.

Estelle Voclain.

No smudging. No ash. No wear from time.

Isabelle stared, feeling a jolt of horror she couldn't fully name.

This wasn't an old list. It was a living thing. Someone had been down here recently, marking, choosing.

She staggered upright, paper clutched tight in her hand.

The shadows pressed closer. The melted candles seemed to sway as if breathing.

She had to warn Estelle.

The afternoon sun was a white smear in the sky as Isabelle raced across town, the crumbling sidewalks and blinking traffic lights blurring past her.

She barely remembered pulling into Estelle's street, barely felt her heels slamming against the pavement as she sprinted to the heavy front door and pounded on it with her fists.

The locks clicked, and Estelle opened it, blinking in surprise.

"Isabelle? What—"

Isabelle shoved past her, dragging her inside.

"Lock it," she ordered breathlessly. "Now."

Still confused, Estelle turned the bolts, her fingers fumbling.

Isabelle whirled on her, thrusting the burned list into her hands.

"Read," she snapped.

Estelle scanned it quickly, her expression shifting from confusion to horror as she reached the end.

"This can't be real," she whispered.

"It is," Isabelle said, voice shaking. "You're on the list. Circled. Now."

Estelle stumbled back, the papers slipping from her fingers.

"Why me?" she rasped.

"I don't know," Isabelle said, pacing, wild. "But if the pattern holds, you're next."

Estelle pressed her hands to her mouth, her body trembling. Isabelle forced herself to slow down, to think.

"They're moving faster now," she said aloud. "The rituals, the disappearances—it's speeding up. Whatever they're planning is close. Final stages."

Estelle leaned heavily against the wall.

"I thought..." she said haltingly. "I thought if I stayed out of sight, didn't poke too hard—"

"You were never invisible," Isabelle said. "None of us were."

Estelle closed her eyes, tears slipping down her cheeks.

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" she whispered.

"I didn't know," Isabelle said, voice breaking. "God, Estelle, I didn't know until today."

The room grew unbearably silent, thick with unspoken fears.

Isabelle paced the living room, scanning for anything unusual—windows ajar, strange marks on the floorboards, the gleam of something left behind.

Nothing. Not yet.

But that was the danger: not yet.

She rounded on Estelle.

"We need to move. Now. We can't stay here."

"Where—?"

"Théo's office. High security. Cameras. Locks."

Estelle nodded shakily, wiping at her face.

They moved quickly, Isabelle bundling Estelle into a coat, checking the streets outside before unlocking the door.

The city had changed.

The color seemed to leech from the air.

The wind carried a hum, a low almost-musical vibration that prickled her skin.

They walked fast, heads down.

And yet, Isabelle couldn't shake the feeling they were already too late.

At the corner, she paused, frowning.

A figure stood across the street.

Motionless.

Watching.

The morning sun gleamed off something in his hand—small, metallic. A key? A knife?

Isabelle didn't wait to find out.

"Run," she hissed to Estelle.

They bolted down the street, Estelle gasping beside her.

Behind them, the figure began to walk—slowly, deliberately, as if confident there was nowhere to run.

Inside Théo's office, Isabelle slammed the door and engaged every lock she could find. She rushed Estelle into the inner room and shoved a chair under the knob.

Estelle collapsed into a chair, face pale and drawn.

Isabelle sagged against the wall, heart trying to tear itself free from her ribs.

She didn't realize she was still clutching the burned list until she saw the edges bleeding soot onto the carpet.

Carefully, she uncrumpled it.

Vivienne's name stared back at her.

Isabelle's name.

Estelle's.

And then something else caught her eye.

At the very bottom of the page, just barely legible in the char and ash, a scrawled line of text had been added by hand:

"The center will collapse. The sacrifice is near."

Isabelle's stomach twisted.

There was a plan at work here, deeper and more monstrous than she had guessed.

And she was standing at the very heart of it.

To be continued...