Some girls were made for chaos.
Luna Carter was made for calm.
She was the kind of girl who wore oversized sweaters even in summer, who read old books no one remembered, and who had the strange habit of stopping to watch birds mid-conversation. Quiet, observant, and far too curious for her own good.
She wasn't famous, powerful, or even particularly lucky.
But something about her made the world... shift, just a little, when she walked by.
At 23, Luna worked as an intern at Willow Creek City Hall, a sleepy government office tucked between a bookstore and a bakery that smelled like melted cinnamon every morning. She was in her final year of law school, living in a studio apartment above a record shop, and surviving mostly on black coffee and toast.
Her coworkers thought she was odd but harmless. Always polite. Always on time. A little too dreamy.
What they didn't know was that Luna had dreams she couldn't explain — strange places she'd never seen, and a man with grey eyes who called her by names that weren't hers.
---
That Tuesday, the world started shifting.
Rain lashed the sidewalks as Luna sprinted into City Hall, her boots soaked, curls clinging to her cheeks. She shook off her coat and headed to the dusty records room in the basement, hoping her boss wouldn't notice her wet jeans.
"Luna!" a voice echoed from upstairs.
She flinched. Too late.
Mr. Harris, her supervisor, leaned over the railing with a file in hand. "Last-minute assignment. Think you can handle it?"
She blinked. "What is it?"
"A demolition check. That abandoned church on Blackpine Street? Someone's tearing it down for a parking structure. Legal wants an inventory of what's inside before the bulldozers come in."
"Today?"
"Right now."
Luna hesitated. Blackpine Street's Saint Alder's Church hadn't opened in decades. It sat alone near the edge of the forest, cloaked in vines and silence. Local kids said it was haunted. Her grandmother used to whisper stories about the church being built on "cursed soil."
But Luna didn't believe in ghosts.
She believed in... stories.
And something about this one tugged at her chest like a string from another life.
---
By noon, Luna was outside the church, umbrella in one hand, flashlight in the other. The building looked worse up close — its wooden doors sagging, stone steps cracked. A rusted sign read Saint Alder's – 1781. Ivy had eaten most of the outer walls.
Inside, it was dark. Dust and silence hung in the air like old breath.
She stepped carefully down the aisle, scanning the pews, the broken altar, the shattered stained glass. Lightning flickered outside, casting brief, eerie shadows through the windows.
"This place is definitely not safe," she muttered.
Her flashlight landed on a staircase behind the altar — narrow and half-covered in wood panels.
She hesitated.
And then stepped forward.
---
The cellar smelled of earth and something older. Shelves lined the walls, filled with rotted hymnals and shattered candles. Her boots echoed. Just as she turned to leave—
Click.
Her foot had landed on something loose. She crouched, brushing dust aside, revealing a crooked floor tile.
With effort, she pried it up.
Underneath was a wooden box, about the size of a shoebox, painted in faded red, carved with strange swirls and marks she didn't recognize.
She lifted it carefully.
It was warm.
She sat down on an old bench and opened it.
Inside were three things:
A silver ring, old and engraved.
A pressed red petal, dried but still vivid.
And a scroll, bound with a black silk ribbon.
Luna's heart beat faster.
There was something familiar about the scroll.
Her fingers brushed the ribbon. For a moment, everything went quiet. Not just silent — quiet in a way that made her skin prickle.
She unraveled the scroll.
The ink had faded but was still readable. The handwriting was beautiful but strange. She read aloud without meaning to, her voice low and shaky:
> "What was sealed by love… shall be freed by loss."
---
The light flickered.
The ground shuddered.
Her flashlight rolled off the bench and clattered to the floor.
From above, a bell rang.
But the church had no working bell.
Luna backed away, clutching the scroll, heart pounding. Her breathing hitched. The air felt thick, almost like she was underwater.
A whisper curled through the cellar like smoke.
> "She has opened it... again…"
Luna froze.
She turned slowly. No one there. But she felt it.
Something had changed.
She shoved the scroll back into the box, grabbed the ring and petal, and ran.
---
Across town, in a sleek glass office that overlooked all of Willow Creek, Asher Grayson sat in silence.
His office was immaculate — no clutter, no warmth. Just like him.
He was known as the city's youngest Deputy Commissioner. Smart, ruthless, impeccably dressed, and emotionally unavailable. Willow Creek called him "the Ice Prince." He liked it that way.
But today, something felt… off.
He had felt it all morning — an unease crawling just beneath his skin.
Then, at exactly 12:14 PM, as he signed off on a redevelopment contract, his pen slipped from his fingers. His heart skipped.
And his ring finger burned.
He stared down.
There was no ring.
But the scar on his skin — the one he didn't remember getting — was glowing faintly, like embers.
A voice he hadn't heard in years echoed in his mind:
> "If she ever finds the box… the curse begins again."
Asher Grayson stood up so fast his chair toppled backward.
Not again.
---
Luna rushed home that night, soaked again, the box clutched tightly to her chest under her coat. She didn't know what was happening. But deep in her bones, she felt it.
Something had awakened.
The kind of thing you only read about in books.
She didn't know who Asher Grayson was.
She didn't know why her dreams would start getting clearer.
Or why her skin now warmed at the touch of the silver ring.
But she would.
Soon.
And when she did, it would be too late to run.
Because some fates don't wait to be chosen.
They return.
Again and again.
---