The wind had never sounded quite so alive.
It wasn't the playful kind that rustled hair and whispered through tree branches. No—this wind carried something sharper, something ancient. It tugged at Elara Rose's jacket, tried to pull her back up the moss-covered hill, away from the crumbling graveyard beneath the weeping willow. But she didn't move. Not yet.
Elara's knees sank into the damp, cold earth. Her breath came out in foggy puffs as she lit the final candle, black wax trembling as flame kissed the wick. Her fingers were smudged with dirt and something darker. Dried roses, a lock of her hair, and her mother's favorite necklace were arranged in a circle.
"Just a protection spell," she murmured to herself. Her voice was hoarse. "Just something to keep her safe from the sickness. Nothing more."
But it was more. And she knew it.
The book in front of her—the one hidden in the attic for decades, leather-bound and smelling of burnt cedar—wasn't a normal spellbook. It pulsed. It breathed. Its pages were filled with words that shimmered, fading in and out of languages she didn't understand, until suddenly, she did.
She'd only wanted a healing charm.
But the book had opened itself to a different page. Its ink bled across the parchment, rearranging the letters into something else. Something older. Elara had felt it then: a presence standing just behind her shoulder, whispering things she didn't quite hear but completely understood.
She had a choice. And she'd made it.
Elara read the words aloud.
The wind stopped instantly. The trees froze. Even the insects went quiet, as if the whole world held its breath. Then the candles went out—snuffed by an unseen hand.
A heartbeat passed. Then two.
And then—crack.
The earth beneath her split, just a hairline fracture, like a broken mirror. A soft hum rose from the ground, traveling up through her bones and into her teeth. The air thickened, buzzing with static. Her head ached. Her vision blurred.
A voice, deep and not quite human, whispered something she couldn't remember the moment she heard it.
And then—it was over.
Elara blinked.
The candles were out. The page was blank. The air had returned to its normal weight. But something had changed. She could feel it. The forest no longer felt like a place she belonged to—it felt like it was watching her.
Elara stumbled to her feet, grabbed the book, and ran.
---
Back at home, the world was still turning. The TV played reruns. Her mother coughed in her room. Her little brother snored from the sofa.
No one else seemed to know that the fabric of reality had just been pulled apart.
Elara stood at her bedroom window, gripping the grimoire like a shield. Outside, the moon hung full and pale in the sky.
Except… no. It wasn't pale. Not quite.
There was a faint shimmer of violet surrounding it, like a bruise forming across the heavens.
And in the distant woods, just beyond the curve of the trees—something was moving.
Something had awakened.