Chapter 5: The Girl with the Broken Name

The letter was still burning in Elior's hand.

Not literally. But the words dug into his skin, branded into his thoughts like ash buried under his fingernails.

> "The others are waking.

You are not the only ones who carry the mark.

Look for the girl with the broken name.

She remembers the silence.

She will show you the second grave."

He read it over and over, waiting for it to make sense. But it didn't. Not until that afternoon, when Maren came rushing into the library, pale and breathless.

"I think I know who she is."

Elior looked up. "What?"

"The girl with the broken name. There's someone in school—quiet, always alone, always sitting at the edge of class. Nobody really talks to her. She used to be called Sera, I think, but now she just goes by Rin."

Elior furrowed his brow. "Rin?"

Maren nodded. "She changed her name a year ago after her brother died. She just… stopped talking for months. People say she went into the woods and came back changed."

Elior blinked. "Changed how?"

"She says she heard things. That the wind told her secrets. That she saw a tree that bled through the bark."

Elior's blood turned cold.

Like the drawing from the letter.

"Let's find her," he said.

---

They found Rin behind the gym building after school, where she often sat alone with her sketchbook and headphones. She didn't even flinch when they approached.

Elior took the lead. "Hey, um… Rin, right?"

She glanced up. Eyes sharp. Pale gray.

"I don't talk to people," she said simply.

Maren sat beside her anyway. "We're not like other people."

Rin gave her a skeptical look, but Maren pulled out the letter—the one with the tree drawing—and placed it gently on Rin's sketchbook.

Rin stared.

Her lips parted slightly.

And then, for the first time in months, she spoke.

"I've seen this tree."

Elior leaned in. "Where?"

"Southside woods. Near the quarry. It only appears when you close your eyes."

They exchanged a glance.

"That doesn't make sense," Elior said.

Rin shrugged. "It's not supposed to. Some places are buried. You have to forget sight to see them."

Maren looked at her carefully. "Why did you change your name?"

Rin hesitated.

Then she flipped a few pages in her sketchbook. On one page was a detailed drawing of herself—but with someone else's face stitched over hers. A girl with no eyes. A girl with roots growing from her mouth.

"My brother's name was on a gravestone before he died," she whispered. "A week before."

Elior's heart skipped. "That's what happened to us. The grave with Maren's name…"

Rin nodded slowly. "The tree you're looking for… it's not just a marker. It's the second lock."

---

They followed her into the woods before sundown.

The Southside forest was tangled and forgotten. The deeper they went, the less sound surrounded them. No birds. No insects. Even their own footsteps felt muted, swallowed by the trees.

Eventually, Rin stopped.

"Close your eyes," she said.

"What?" Elior asked.

"It only appears that way."

Maren hesitated, but obeyed. Elior followed.

At first—nothing.

Then the air shifted.

He felt it. Like something thick and cold brushing past his skin.

Then a voice—not spoken, but whispered straight into the back of his mind.

> "Beneath the roots, he waits.

The second grave is open.

Dig, and remember."

Elior's eyes flew open.

And there it was.

A massive, twisted tree with bark like petrified flesh, right where there had been nothing before. Its roots curled over a mound of earth, and carved into the bark—

Name #2: SERA RIN

Maren clutched his arm. "Your name…"

Rin stepped forward, shaking.

"I was supposed to be second," she said. "But I ran."

Elior stepped forward and began to dig.

The soil was soft, like it wanted to be opened.

Soon, they uncovered a wooden box. Smaller than a coffin. A chest, perhaps. Sealed shut with iron bands.

Rin stepped back. "I don't want to see what's inside."

But Elior had already pried it open.

Inside was not a body.

But a mask.

Old. Carved of wood. Shaped like a human face, but with a wide-open mouth and no eyes.

And next to it—

A letter.

He unfolded it slowly.

> The silence is broken. The second has been reclaimed.

The masks kept the sleepers quiet. Now, they will begin to speak.

Two locks undone. Five remain. The roots remember. The girl remembers. But the boy—he was never meant to find this.

And now, something else watches him.

Elior felt a cold breath on his neck.

He spun around—

Nothing.

But the air was wrong.

Heavy.

Like they were no longer alone.

---

That night, Rin refused to go home. She stayed with Maren instead, curled up on her couch, whispering to herself. Maren wrote down everything they had discovered—about the tree, the grave, the mask.

Elior sat alone in his room, staring at the mask he'd taken.

He wasn't sure why he had brought it with him.

But it called to him.

Whispers echoed from it when the lights were off.

He tried to sleep. But when he did, he didn't dream.

He sank.

Into a place darker than black. A pit with no end.

And at the bottom, something stirred.

It had no shape. No form. Only hunger.

> "You were not meant to awaken.

Now you will never sleep again."

He awoke screaming.

And on his desk…

Another letter.

No envelope.

Just blood on the paper.

And one sentence.

> "The third is near. The mirror waits."