Bhuvan_Prakash_1610

For centuries, the world has turned a blind eye to the cracks in reality—places where the ancient and the impossible bleed into the modern day. But when a hidden vault is unearthed in Germany’s Black Forest, seven strangers across the globe begin to hear the same whisper.

Each of them holds a piece of a horrifying puzzle:

A haunted archaeologist in Germany.

A professor in Japan whose dreams predict death.

A French detective chasing a killer that leaves no trace.

A Spanish journalist obsessed with a conspiracy that ruined his life.

A psychic in Serbia who sees a truth too dark to bear.

A fallen priest in Scotland running from what he once exorcised.

And a hacker in Italy who unlocks a forbidden code on the dark web.


As ancient horrors stir and reality begins to fracture, they must uncover the terrifying truth behind The Veilbound—a secret society guarding humanity from what lurks just beyond sight. But the seal is breaking… and something is coming through.

They don’t know each other.
They don’t trust each other.
But they are the world’s last chance.

Whispers behind the veil

The morning light felt artificial.

Kenji hadn't slept. The walls of his apartment were still intact, his floor still cold, his books untouched—but he no longer trusted any of it. The mask he saw, the temple, the lanterns… were burned into his mind like symbols carved into wet stone.

He poured tea with shaking hands, the steam rising like incense in a shrine.

He returned to the Kyoto Folklore Archives, a private library beneath the university where only ten people still visited in a given year. It smelled of old paper, sandalwood, and dampness. The fluorescent lights flickered when he entered—as they always had—but today, it felt less like a fault and more like a warning.

Kenji moved straight to the forbidden shelf—texts kept from students, marked with red tape, wrapped in warnings from the university board.

He retrieved a slim, cracked book bound in black silk. It had no author. No title. Just the spiral symbol stitched into the cover with silver thread. It had been in the archives long before he became a professor.

He opened to the marked page—one he remembered from years ago but had never fully translated.

> "When the red sky awakens and the paper mouths begin to speak, the Lantern Watchers return. They are harbingers of the Veilbreaking."

> "All who see the eye are marked. They will dream the city beneath the skin. They will speak the name that must not echo."

> "And then… the bleeding begins."

Kenji swallowed. The air around him had grown colder.

He flipped the page—and stopped.

Tucked between the parchment was a photograph. Yellowed, creased, and faded.

It showed a woman, dirt-streaked and holding a stone tablet in one hand. Her name was written in German on the back:

> Dr. Elara Voss – Schwarzwald Excavation – 1997

That wasn't possible. Elara told him she was currently on that excavation in Germany—in the present day.

There, behind her in the image, he saw a shape. Something in the background. A doorway in the rock, perfectly circular, with spiral carvings just like the ones he'd seen in his vision.

And on the doorway, written in faint, ancient runes:

The name he had only ever heard in dreams.

Kenji sat down hard, the weight of realization crashing in.

CHAPTER 5 ECHOES IN THE DUST