The sun rose, its light a soft, golden balm stretching across the misty fields.
It was beautiful—the kind of beauty that clung to the heart, stirring memories of simpler days.
The golden beams spilled over the old huts, dancing along the swaying grass, and kissed the stone paths winding through the village. It should have been a peaceful morning, one where farmers yawned and stretched, mothers woke their children with gentle voices, and hunters strapped their gear for the day's work.
It should have been—but it wasn't.
The air hummed with wrongness.
Seraphine stood outside the hut, her hands tightly clutched together in the folds of her dark blue nun's robes. Her brown hair was tucked neatly under her wimple, but stray curls escaped, brushing her flushed cheeks. Her storm-gray eyes followed Elise with deep worry—worry that had grown heavier with each passing day.
"How did it come to this?" she thought grimly.
Since her awakening, Elise had changed.
The process of Awakening—where one's soul tethered itself to the primal forces of the world—was rare, a divine gift whispered in legend. Most Awakeners were revered, blessed, Even seen as gods. But Elise… Elise had never told them what gift she received. She kept it hidden like a secret dagger.
Since then, the sweet six-year-old girl Seraphine once knew—the one who danced with dandelions, whose laughter peeled like bells—had eroded.
A soft memory floated up against her will:
A much younger Elise running barefoot through the fields, a crown of wildflowers tangled in her gold hair, laughter ringing out so pure it could break a heart.
"Catch me, Mama! Catch me!" she'd cried, running with arms outstretched.
Seraphine's throat tightened painfully.
The Elise of now was a creature of sharpness and shadows. Rude. Erratic.
Sometimes… she even scared her.
And today, watching her shriek, tremble, and lead her father into the woods, Seraphine could no longer deny the gnawing thought:
"Something in her soul has broken."
The small group moved forward.
Gerald walked ahead, flanked by two grim-faced village guards in patchy leather armor. Their spears glinted dull against the waking sun.
Elise led them, still in her tattered white nightdress, dirty and ripped, her golden hair a tangled, wild mess as she stomped through the mud and broken branches.
Ahead, the hunters—a few burly men in wolf-pelt cloaks—scoured the ground, crouched low, scanning for tracks or blood. Their grizzled faces were etched with frowns as they swept aside leaves and sniffed the cold morning air.
The forest around them was deceptively still.
Birds called from high in the trees. A fox darted across the misty brush. The world moved on as if there weren't supposed to be corpses staining its roots.
Finally, they reached a small clearing.
The sunlight bathed the area warmly. A patch of soft earth surrounded by towering trees. It looked… ordinary.
Too ordinary.
Elise froze, staring around in wild confusion.
"They were— They were here! I swear!!" she screamed, spinning around, pointing madly.
"There! Tomas—was there!" she cried, gesturing wildly to a crooked tree. "And Lina—her legs were—" she sobbed, pointing to another spot. "And Markel was hanging—like like—" her voice broke into hoarse gasps.
The hunters, exchanging wary glances, carefully followed her directions.
They found nothing.
No blood.
No bodies.
No twisted limbs.
Only the soft impressions of small boots, bits of ripped white cloth snagged on thorns—Elise's nightdress, torn from her frantic sprint.
Gerald sighed heavily, rubbing his forehead.
"Elise," he said, his voice firm, heavy with disappointment. "This has gone far enough."
"No!!" Elise shrieked, yanking at her hair until tufts of golden strands came loose. "I'm not lying! I'm not—I swear—!!" She dropped to her knees, grasping his tunic, trembling like a fevered child.
She raised her tear-stained face to him, red-eyed and broken.
"Daddy—please—you have to believe me!!" she sobbed, the desperation ripping from her in choking bursts.
Gerald flinched.
His heart ached.
He wanted to brush away the filth, gather her in his arms, and tell her she was safe.
But the clearer he looked into her frantic eyes, the more doubt crawled up his spine.
Just as he opened his mouth to respond—
Children's laughter echoed across the clearing.
Everyone turned sharply.
Down the path, a group of children skipped toward them, chatting excitedly.
Elise stared, frozen.
There was Tomas.
There was Lina.
There was Markel.
Alive.
But not alive.
Their skin was ghostly pale, a dusting of ashen white powder smeared over their faces and arms.
Their smiles were wide, too wide.
Their clothes were the same, but stained faintly red at the seams.
Their movements were stiff, jerky, and puppet-like under the morning sun.
"Chief Harrow!" Tomas called cheerfully, waving. His voice cracked unnaturally. "Sorry! We just wanted to prank Elise! She's used to this kind of thing! We didn't think it would get this crazy!"
"Y-yeah!" Lina piped in, her neck tilting slightly sideways as she grinned. "It was just for fun!"
Markel laughed, though it sounded hollow, strained.
Gerald stiffened. Even he saw something was off—but Elise…
Elise saw it.
"NO!!!" she screamed, her voice tearing from her throat. "You're NOT them!!"
She lunged at Tomas, hands clawing forward to strangle the boy.
Before her fingers could close around his pale neck—
CRACK.
Gerald's hand caught the side of her head.
The world spun.
Elise's vision flashed white, then black.
As her body slumped to the ground, she looked up one last time, catching her father's face.
A soft, sad smile.
A guilt-ridden smile.
"Sorry, my little girl," his eyes seemed to say.
Gerald sighed heavily.
He turned to the children, his voice hollow. "Apologies. Thank you for explaining."
The ghost-white children nodded and smiled.
As he hoisted Elise's limp body into his arms, he turned toward home, his heart heavier than ever before.
Behind him, the children watched.
And somewhere, deep inside the woods, something unseen… smiled too.
Gerald sat on the worn bench outside their hut, Elise's unconscious body tucked carefully into the old wool blanket Seraphine had sewn years ago.
The sun, now fully risen, poured down its golden light.
The sky blazed in colors too brilliant, too nostalgic—like a painting mocking their suffering.
Gerald rubbed his weathered hands over his face, sighing deeply.
Seraphine sat beside him, her posture rigid, hands folded tightly in her lap.
She was still in her dark blue robes, the hem muddy, her brown hair windswept and wild around her pale face.
The sight of her husband, so worn and crumbling under the invisible weight, tightened something inside her chest.
Neither spoke at first.
The air around them was thick, almost syrupy, with tension.
From within the hut, Elise's soft moans drifted out—a broken, feverish sound.
Finally, Gerald spoke.
"She's not well, Raphine."
Seraphine flinched at the shortening of her name—a rare thing, something he only did when he was desperate, when the world tilted wrong.
"I know," she whispered, voice trembling. "I know…"
He turned to look at her.
Those steel-gray eyes of hers, once full of fire and stubborn life, now dulled with sorrow.
"She's… since the awakening… I don't recognize her anymore."
Seraphine pressed a shaking hand to her mouth, forcing down the sob that threatened to escape. She blinked rapidly, remembering the sweet, laughing Elise of before—and the frantic, snarling child now.
"She never told us her gift," Gerald muttered, his voice cracking at the edges. "What if…?"
He didn't finish.
Seraphine shook her head violently, as if trying to reject the thought before it could fully take shape.
"She's not cursed," she whispered. "She's not. She's our daughter."
But even as she spoke, her hands twisted in the fabric of her robes, wringing it like a prayer.
The silence stretched long and painful between them.
Until, from the woods beyond the village, a chill blew down the path.
A wind carrying the scent of damp earth… and something else.
Something rotten.
Gerald shivered involuntarily, clutching the hilt of the knife strapped to his belt.
"Something is coming."
He felt it in his bones—the old warrior's instinct honed by years of surviving.
And deep, deep inside her heart, Seraphine prayed—but for the first time, it wasn't to save Elise.
It was to save the world from her.
Far from the village, hidden beyond the thick veil of trees, they watched.
The clearing where Elise had led the guards was now silent again, the earth breathing slow and steady under the deceptive peace.
Among the twisted roots of an ancient, dead tree, a small figure crouched.
Theo.
He was no longer the pitiful, trembling boy they once mocked.
No longer the meek, soft-spoken child.
In the weak morning light, he looked almost... other.
His once-bright yellow hair hung lank and greasy around his face. His skin was sallow, sickly pale, as if drained by some unseen parasite.
And his smile—
Oh gods, his smile.
It stretched unnaturally, nearly reaching the corners of his face, splitting his lips into a grotesque, trembling expression of innocent horror.
In his small, trembling hands, he clutched an ancient, rotted book.
Its blackened cover seemed to breathe with a pulse of its own, the writhing sigils stitched in a language no human should know.
Across his hands, faint pink threads wove from the book into the air, trailing invisibly, unseen by all but those who could perceive the soul's fabric.
Those threads reached out—
toward the village,
toward Elise's friends,
and the colors of the threads, once a faint, gentle pink, now bled into a deep, vile purple.
A stain of corruption.
Standing behind Theo, tall and graceful, her silhouette almost blending into the blackened forest, was the black-haired woman.
Her long hair shimmered like the night sky itself, devouring the light.
Her skin was deathly pale, so pale she seemed sculpted from marble.
Her lips, plump and pink, curved into a disturbingly warm smile.
But it was her eyes that horrified most.
Eyes blacker than night—voids so deep, so vast, they seemed capable of swallowing entire worlds.
They glistened with maternal pride—and insatiable, monstrous desire.
She leaned forward slightly, her voice a sweet melody dipped in venom.
"Did you enjoy your revenge, little Theo?"
Her words floated like perfume in the poisoned air.
Theo tilted his head sharply, the book trembling in his grasp.
A droplet of blood dripped from his cracked lips.
"No…" he whispered, his voice thin and warped.
He clutched the book tighter, his nails digging into its cursed skin.
"I need more," he rasped. His crooked smile widened, twitches pulling at his cheeks uncontrollably.
"I need her to suffer."
He licked his dry lips.
"More... and more... and more…"
His voice trembled, not with fear, but with hunger.
Somewhere behind his words, behind the pitiful crackle of his young voice, another deeper voice echoed faintly, whispering in unholy joy.
The woman chuckled, the sound cold and shivering with delight.
"Good, my darling," she cooed, stroking the air near his head, as if blessing him.
"Feed your hate. Feed your wound. Let it fester…"
Above their heads, the pink threads thickened into slithering purple cords, pulsating with life.
The trees around them seemed to lean inward, their bark darkening, their roots writhing softly in the cursed soil.
The air itself darkened, shadows lengthening, despite the dawn's light.
Theo's eyes glistened with an emotion too twisted to name.
He hugged the book closer to his chest, a mad little giggle escaping him.
In the distance, the village laughed, played, lived—
Unaware that their doom grew stronger with every breath the boy took.
The woman's black eyes gleamed.
Soon, the feast would begin. The end is finally beginning, she thought with a bright, ghastly smile.