amen90613

Some places are built to shelter the soul. Others, to guard a secret.

In a forgotten corner of the world, tucked between ancient trees and winding mist, there stands a café known only to those who need it most. No signs. No staff. Just a weathered door, slightly ajar—waiting.

Eliyas, a young man haunted by fragments of a past he doesn’t fully understand, stumbles into this retreat chasing a whisper—a name tied to something far greater than him. As he finds sanctuary beneath its quiet beams, he realizes the café is more than a refuge. It's a fulcrum, balancing two realities: the calm surface of the world… and the unseen current beneath it.
Beneath steaming mugs and silent mornings lies a thread pulling them toward something ancient, dangerous, and alive.

Some doors offer peace. Others open to the unknown.

The Hidden Retreat

The forest felt different this time.

The usual rustle of wind through leaves was absent, replaced by a hush so thick it pressed against Eliyas's eardrums. He moved carefully, his boots—scuffed leather now stiff with dried mud—crushing last autumn's brittle leaves underfoot. His jacket sleeves were rolled to the elbows, revealing forearms crisscrossed with thin scratches from yesterday's bramble. The air smelled of damp earth and something sharper, like ozone after a storm.

No building stood there now. Only a circle of scorched earth, its edges blackened as if by a heat that knew exactly where to stop. The soil pulsed faintly under his gaze, waves of warmth rising in visible shimmers.

Eliyas stepped into it. The moment his boot crossed the boundary, his body registered the change before his mind could—the hair on his arms lifting, his pulse slowing to a thick, syrupy rhythm. Time stretched like taffy.

He knelt, pressing his palm flat against the ground. The static buzz hit instantly, traveling up his wrist like live wire. His fingers twitched involuntarily, the ink stains around his cuticles darkening as if absorbing the energy.

Flickers erupted behind his eyelids:

The café's interior, warped and shuddering like a reflection in disturbed water

The owner's hands (were there more fingers than before?) wrapped around a steaming cup

A voice, cold and distant, whispering a word that clung like frost:

Eliyas jerked his hand back. The connection severed with a snap he felt in his teeth.

The forest remained still. Too still.

Then he saw it—a single vine, its surface gleaming with an unnatural indigo sheen, slithering from the scorched circle toward the trees. He followed, his boots leaving shallow impressions in soil that seemed to sigh under his weight. The vine led him to a moss-covered stone—no, a *marker*, its surface carved with the same sigil from the café's door.

Up close, the symbol resolved into clarity: overlapping arcs, a central tear, and beneath it, etched lines that formed—

His breath fogged in the sudden chill as he traced the spirals and nodes with a trembling finger. The central point matched this clearing exactly. The realization settled heavy in his gut:

Eliyas spun, his jacket whipping against his thighs—but the trees stood empty. Yet the prickle at the base of his spine remained, insistent as a blade's point.

He hadn't been alone when he entered the clearing.

The Trace Left Behind