2. The Journal, the Girl, and the Eyes

Rhea 

They say the dead leave behind memories. Elara didn’t. She left behind a war. I just didn’t know it yet. The journal sat like a curse on the table, its pages whispering to me every time I walked past it. That morning, after the dream and the… footprints, I made coffee strong enough to punch a hole through time and stared at that damn book.

The line circled in red ink wouldn’t stop echoing in my head.

“The Crimson blood is not a curse. It’s a key.”

Key to what, I wonder?

I flipped through more pages. Elara had been recording symbols, herbs, and moon phases. Sketches of animals with glowing eyes and wolves with runes etched into their fur. Words like “Alpha line,” “blood pact,” and “awakening.”

I didn’t know whether she’d gone mad… or worse, whether she hadn’t. A knock on the door startled me. I blinked at it, half expecting another dream. But instead, there she was.

A girl with violet-tipped hair, dark eyeliner, and a leather satchel full of books. She smiled nervously. "Hi. You must be Rhea Cross?” I nodded, still recovering from the fact that she looked like she’d stepped out of a tarot card deck.

“I’m Violet. I live just down the road. I… knew your sister.” That snapped me out of it. “You knew Elara?” She nodded, a little too quickly. “Sort of. I mean, she wasn’t exactly social, but we… talked sometimes. I thought I’d come say hello.”

Her eyes flicked to the journal on the table. “You’re… reading her notes?” I closed it gently. “Trying to make sense of them.” She hesitated, then took a step inside, uninvited but harmless. “Elara was… different,” Violet said, scanning the cottage. “She saw things most people pretend not to. She believed in the old ways.”

I frown in confusion, “The old ways?” She smiled. “You’ll see.” I wasn’t sure if that was a promise or a warning.

Later that afternoon, I walked through Ashwood’s narrow streets while Violet showed me around. She wasn’t as strange as she looked—just someone with too many secrets stuffed behind a polite smile. I could relate. She pointed out the flower shop, the barely functional grocery store, and the church that hadn’t opened its doors in years.

“This place never changes,” she muttered. “It’s like it’s stuck in a loop.” 

“What about the woods?” I asked. Violet’s entire body tensed. “Don’t go in there alone.” I am too curious to know everything now. “Why?” She looked at me, too calmly. “Because people don’t always come back.” What the hell does that mean? 

We passed a stretch of black SUVs parked outside a large iron gate at the edge of town. On the other side, a gravel path led to a massive estate. White stone. Ivy-covered balconies. Shining windows like eyes. “That’s the Draven estate,” Violet said. “Home of Ashwood’s royalty.”

“Royalty?” I ask out of curiosity. “They own most of the land here. Including half the woods.” That’s when I saw him. Leaning against one of the SUVs, arms crossed, dark shirt rolled up to his elbows, a jawline sharp enough to cut glass.

Kael Draven. He looked up, and his brown eyes glowed unexpectedly as if his pupils were dilated, and our eyes locked. He didn’t smile. Didn’t nod. Just watched. Like, he recognized me. Violet quickly tugged my sleeve. “Come on.” But I couldn’t stop staring. There was something in his eyes. Not anger. Not a surprise. Something… ancient. And when he finally looked away, it felt like waking up from a trance.

That night, back in Elara’s cottage, I couldn’t sleep. Again. I flipped open the journal, hoping for answers and only getting more questions.

“Kael knows. He always has. But even he fears what lies beyond the seal.”

I frowned. Kael. What did Elara mean? Why would she mention his name like that?

I didn’t hear the footsteps right away. I was too focused on the book. But then—on instinct—I looked toward the window.

And froze. A man stood on the edge of the forest line. Tall. Shirtless. Inhumanly still. His skin shimmered faintly in the moonlight, like it was marked with old symbols. His eyes gleamed yellow. Not like a reflection—like they were lit from inside. He wasn’t Kael.

He wasn’t anyone I knew. And in the blink of an eye, he was gone. Just… vanished.

The next morning, I told myself it was sleep deprivation. Stress. Trauma. I had been thinking so much about it lately that it had consumed my thoughts. But when I walked outside, I found something waiting on the steps.

A single white flower.

Fresh and untouched by frost.

I bent down and picked it up, my heart racing.

Wrapped around its stem was a note.

“Crimson always draws wolves.”

No signature. No blood. But still… a threat. And all I could think was: Who else knows I’m here?

And more importantly… What are they waiting for?

I stood there with the flower in my hand, staring into the woods like they owed me an explanation. But the trees said nothing. There was no signature. No clue. Just the silence between the leaves and a creeping sense that I was no longer alone—not here, not anywhere.

I crushed the note in my fist and stepped back inside, locking every door behind me. It wouldn’t matter. Whatever left that flower didn’t need doors. I couldn’t stop thinking about last night. The man at the edge of the woods — tall, shirtless, branded by moonlight. He hadn’t moved, but I felt it.

That presence. Like gravity had bent around him. I should’ve told someone. Called the police. Called… someone. But what would I say?

“Hi, I think my dead sister was hunted by glowing-eyed forest men with cryptic flowers?”

I made tea instead. The coward’s defense.

Violet showed up again around noon, holding a bag of dried herbs and a book too thick to be recreational. “Protection charm,” she said, stepping into my kitchen like she lived here. “Just in case.” I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion, “In case of what?”

She paused. “Things that don’t knock before they come in.” She set the herbs in a circle on the counter and began muttering under her breath. I watched her hands—how they moved with purpose, how her voice carried something older than her years.

“You’re not just a girl with eyeliner and weird books, are you?” She glanced up, smiling slightly. “Nope.”

I began my questioning, with every passing moment, I came to know about things, and I wanted to know everything. “And Elara? She believed in all this?” My heart was beating hard in my chest as I waited for her response. “She knew,” Violet said. “But no one listened. Not even the Order.”

My mind stuck on that word, and immediately I exclaimed, “The what?” Her mouth shut fast. Too fast. “What order?” But she just turned back to the herbs.

After she left, I flipped through Elara’s journal again. I was beginning to realize it wasn’t just a diary — it was a map. One only she could follow. And now she was gone, and I was left stumbling through it blind. I tried to focus on something normal. Anything. So I walked to town again. Same path, same trees.

But something felt different today. I kept catching movement in the corner of my eye. A figure. A flicker. Just out of sight. The kind of paranoia that starts in your stomach and coils around your spine. I turned around once and swore I saw something in the trees. A figure. Tall, broad. Not moving. Just… standing there.

Watching me again. But when I blinked, it was gone. Maybe it never was there. But deep down, something told me the footprints hadn’t been a one-time thing.

At the edge of town, I passed the Draven estate again. This time, the front gates were open. A sleek black car sat just beyond them, humming quietly like a beast at rest. And Kael Draven stood there again, by the porch, shirt dark, expression unreadable.

He looked at me — not surprised, almost like he’d been waiting. “Lost?” he asked, voice deep and calm like riverwater, and my breath hitched. “No,” I said, slower than I meant to. “Just… looking.”

“Most people avoid this path,” he retorted, his voice sounded like a taunt, and it took me a second to reply to him, “Most people aren’t me.” That made the edge of his mouth twitch. A fraction of a smirk. And then he walked away without another word, disappearing behind the towering doors of the estate.

Like he’d only stepped out to confirm something. Or to see if I’d come.

That night, I lit every candle I could find and placed the dried herbs Violet left near the windows. It made me feel ridiculous — like I was pretending to be in a movie I didn’t understand the plot of. But when I lay in bed, journal open beside me, I couldn’t ignore the dread pooling in my chest.

I didn’t know the rules of this place. I didn’t know the ghosts I was sleeping next to. But I knew one thing. Something was waiting in those woods. Watching. Following. Choosing.