The fog rolled in thicker than ever before.
Elara pushed through it, each step into the forest like wading deeper into a dream. Or a nightmare. Her lantern's light barely reached the gnarled roots beneath her boots, and the trees loomed like giants cloaked in smoke.
Her grandmother was somewhere in Black Hollow.
But she wasn't alone.
The deeper Elara went, the more wrong everything felt. The silence was not the quiet of peace - it was the stillness of something watching. Something waiting.
Suddenly, a shape darted past her - too fast to follow. Her heart skipped. She spun, dagger raised.
Nothing.
Then a voice: soft and cracked like dry leaves.
"Elara…"
She froze.
It was her grandmother's voice. But it was coming from the wrong direction.
"Elara, child… help me…"
No footsteps. No rustling. Just the fog and that voice echoing again.
"Elara…"
Her blood turned cold.
She stepped back, eyes wide. "Show yourself!" A figure emerged slowly from the mist. It wore her grandmother's cloak, but not the warmth in her grandmother's face. The eyes were wrong - dark, glassy, void of light.
"Elara," it said again, smiling without kindness. "Why are you running from me?"
Elara raised the dagger.
The thing laughed deep, slow, ancient. "Still holding that little trinket?" it hissed. "That blade did nothing for Aric in the end. And it won't save you." With a sudden shriek, the figure lunged. Elara swung the dagger and where the blade sliced the creature's side, it screamed, burning like paper under flame. The thing collapsed into a swirl of black mist, vanishing into the trees. She gasped for breath, heart pounding.
That wasn't her grandmother.
That was a shadow a puppet. Thorne was growing stronger. She turned and ran back toward the village. She had to warn the others. She had to find the true grave and the sealing circle before more were taken. But when she arrived, the village had already begun to change.
Shutters were closed. Doors barred. But faces pale, distant, unfamiliar peered from windows. Faces she knew. Or thought she did. The butcher. The teacher. The miller's wife.
All staring. Not blinking. Not moving.
As if someone else was behind their eyes.
"Elara Thorn," a voice echoed from the bell tower. She looked up.
There he stood. Thorne. Smiling down at her from the highest window, black coat flowing like shadow, lantern glowing beside him. "I told you," he said, his voice carrying through the still air, "I want nothing from them. It's you I came for." And then, one by one, the villagers began to walk toward her.
Silent.
Expressionless.
Possessed.