~Omniscient POV The forest never truly slept. Even now, with the moon caught behind a thick lid of cloud, the undergrowth pulsed with sound—soft shifts of leaves, the scratch of claws on bark, the faint chitter of something small and hungry in the dark. Kyle paced in front of the hut like a caged animal. The masked man had taken Ivy inside over an hour ago. The door was shut, the gaps between the rough-hewn planks glowing faintly blue from whatever sorcery was at work within. He kept glancing at it, as if glaring at the wood would somehow hurry the process along. The ground under his boots was already worn from his pacing. His attention kept drifting to the treeline. The forest loomed—silent in ways it shouldn’t be. He stopped. There it was again—movement. Subtle, just beyond the line where the torchlight from the hut dissolved into black. The shadows bent unnaturally, as if something was slipping between them. Kyle stepped forward, trying to mask his fear by acting cour
~Ivy I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me but when I moved closer, I knew they weren’t. It was actually my mom. She looked nothing like I remembered. She looked dangerous, powerful and scary as hell. Her eyes were glowing and she hovered over the floor at a reasonable distance. I turned around hoping to see the hooded figure but I didn’t see him anymore. I called out to him but I was replied with silence. The racing in my chest told me to run but I didn’t. The air shifted—just enough for me to notice. Then… it was gone. I turned towards where my mom was but she simply wasn’t there anymore. No sound. No flicker of robes. Nothing. It was almost like she was never there. I exhaled—too fast, too loud—and turned back toward the far wall. She was there. Close. So close I felt the brush of warm breath against my cheek. My knees almost buckled, but my body betrayed me—I didn’t move, couldn’t move. Her gaze pinned me in place, a pale white glow humming faintly in the dar
~Ivy The sound of my own breathing was too loud in this silence. Not the normal kind of silence—the oppressive kind, like the world was holding its breath, waiting to see if I was going to make a wrong move. I kept my steps light, pressing my boots into the soft moss carpeting the forest floor. The figure ahead of me—hooded, quick—never glanced back, but I feel their awareness pressing at the edges of my mind. They knew I was here. The trees closed in tighter the farther I went. Their trunks were ancient, swollen with age, bark peeling like the pages of a book too often read. Thin ribbons of light slip between their branches, not sunlight, but something colder, pale as moonstone. I ran after the hooded figure, trying to catch up and see where they were headed but they were a lot faster than me. I quickened my pace, weaving between roots as thick as my arm. The air smelt faintly sweet, like dried fruit left in a jar too long. Something shifted beneath my feet making me stop. The
~Kyle The book didn’t look like much at first to be honest. If anything, it looked too old and too pathetic to carry any useful information. The pages were yellowed, the cover half-eaten by time and maybe rats, and the spine crackled every time I turned a page. Nothing screamed forbidden in this book—but then again, the real ones never did. I sat on the worn library floor, legs crossed, back against the crooked bookshelf. Beside me, she was slumped over her arms, head resting on a book she hadn’t even finished flipping through. I thought she’d just dozed off. Normal. Cute, even. She’d been tired. We both were. But then the book I was holding whispered. Not audibly. Not in the haunted manor sense. But my hands went cold. My skin prickled. The air shifted around me like something was watching. I looked down and there it was—barely a line scrawled in the margins. A language I didn’t know but could suddenly read. Protective Warding: All intrusions from the unbound shall invoke curse
~Ivy The pages were musty. The kind of old that stuck to your skin, like dust clinging to the inside of your lungs. Kyle sat beside me, hunched forward, his hand sliding over each line like he was trying to unlock it with touch alone. I watched him, mostly. Kyle had this way of reading—like the world would end if he didn’t figure it all out first. Me? I was just looking for stories. The ones buried in the margins. Handwritten notes from centuries ago. The kind you could pretend were left just for you. The library was quieter than usual, even for a place built from stone and shadow. Maybe it was the rain. It whispered against the arched windows like it wanted to come inside too. I blinked slowly. The words were starting to melt together. Some story about a forgotten realm sealed from the rest of the world—cliché, but there was something in the way it was written. There were names I recognized but couldn’t place. Symbols I thought I’d seen before. Kyle turned a page. I meant to a
~Clone Aeron Afternoon light bled amber over the courtyard stones as I paced the inner walls. From up here, the village looked almost peaceful—white smoke spiraling from chimney mouths, children shrieking in delight at some unseen game, carts creaking beneath the weight of early harvest. But I saw the tension in their movements. The way backs stayed too straight when I passed. The way conversations halted, then resumed in hushed tones when they thought I was out of earshot. There were cracks forming in Obsidian’s bones. Not yet wide enough to bleed from, but close. I descended into the southern corridor, flanked by silence. The guards posted at the east hall doors stiffened as I approached. I didn’t speak. Just nodded. A flick of my fingers and they opened the way. Inside: the war chamber. A cold room, too large for the voices that dared occupy it. Maps lay scattered over the central table like discarded truths. I spent an hour there, circling terrain sketches, drawing up fals