The house felt different that night.
Not because anything had changed — the furniture was the same, the soft yellow glow of the hallway lights had the same warmth, and her mother's slippers were still tucked neatly beside the living room couch.
But something in the air had shifted.
As if the walls themselves knew Nyra was no longer moving blindly through them.
As if they were holding their breath.
Nyra paused at her bedroom door, listening.
Her mother's footsteps moved across the house in slow, familiar patterns. Into the kitchen. To the sink. The soft clinking of a cup. Then the gentle creak of the old hallway floorboard as she returned to her own room.
Then silence.
Not the normal, peaceful kind — this one was too deliberate.
Her mother was awake. Waiting. Or listening.
Nyra let out a silent breath.
She knows something's wrong.
And she's watching me closer than ever.
Good.
Let her watch.
Nyra had spent the entire day pulling at invisible strings in her mind, replaying the dream, trying to analyze every face, every word, every flame. And no matter how she twisted the pieces, everything pointed to the same truth:
The answers were in this house.
And tonight, she needed them.
She waited ten more minutes, sitting on the edge of her bed, pretending to scroll through her phone with trembling fingers.
Another ten for her mother to fall into her usual cycle of half-sleep.
Then she stood.
Quietly. Barefoot. Heart beating too loudly in her chest.
She eased her door open.
The hallway was dim, lit only by the moon spilling through the curtains. Dust motes swirled lazily in the air. The house was calm — too calm — like a predator pretending to be asleep.
Nyra's eyes drifted down the hall toward her mother's room.
The door was shut.
But that wasn't what made her breath hitch.
At the end of the hallway — near the tiny storage closet no one ever used — something flickered.
A faint, pulsing glow.
Red.
Soft.
Like the ghost of a heartbeat trapped behind a wall.
The same color that had wound through Nyra's veins in the dream.
She crept closer, blood roaring in her ears.
When she reached the storage door, the glow dimmed — almost as if it sensed her.
Nyra rested her fingertips on the knob.
Cold.
Too cold.
Her pulse spiked.
She twisted the knob slowly, every muscle tight, every movement measured.
It opened with a soft click.
Inside: darkness.
Just shelves lined with old boxes. Winter clothes. Photo albums. Cleaning supplies that hadn't been touched in years.
It looked normal.
That was the problem.
It looked too normal.
Her instincts screamed that something was wrong — not in the closet itself, but around it. Beneath it. Behind it.
She stepped inside.
Her feet pressed against the wooden floorboards—
Then stopped.
One of them felt… different.
Slightly raised. Hollow.
Nyra knelt, her breath shaking, and pressed her palm to the board.
Something throbbed beneath it.
A heartbeat.
Not hers.
Her fingers curled under the edge, and she pulled.
The board lifted.
Beneath it was a small metal hatch — blackened with age, etched with faint markings she didn't recognize. The pulsing red light seeped through thin cracks around its edges.
Nyra swallowed hard.
A secret room.
In my own house.
Hidden under a storage closet.
Her mother had lied.
Not just a small lie.
A lie with a whole door.
She hesitated — for one breath, two — then gripped the hatch handle.
It was warm.
Too warm.
She pulled.
A rush of cold air hit her face like a whisper from a forgotten world.
Nyra coughed, blinking against the sudden sting of old air and dust.
Then she froze.
Because what lay below wasn't a basement.
It wasn't even a room.
It was a chamber.
Circular.
Stone-carved.
Etched with the same runes that had glowed in her dream.
And on a pedestal in the center of the chamber—
A book.
Bound in deep black leather, embossed with a symbol that made Nyra's blood run cold:
A crescent moon
pierced through its center
by a line of dripping red.
She knew that symbol.
She had seen it on the cloaked figures in the burning forest.
Her breath left her in a shudder.
Noctari
Her dream hadn't been a nightmare.
It had been a memory.
A warning.
A prophecy.
Nyra climbed down the narrow ladder into the chamber, each step echoing through the empty space. Her fingers shook as she reached for the book — but when she touched it, the surface pulsed under her fingertips.
Like it recognized her.
Like it had been waiting.
She opened it.
Page One
The Blood-Born Lineage
The Children of Dual-Soul
Nyra blinked hard.
Her throat tightened.
"What… what is this…?"
She flipped to the next page.
Page Two
They must be hidden at all costs.
Their power is unstable.
Their hunger unmatched.
Their existence forbidden.
Her breath hitched painfully.
She turned another page.
Then another.
The ink blurred as her heartbeat quickened.
Page Eleven
If one is born under the crimson eclipse, the mother must flee with the child. For the Noctari will hunt them, and the Order will destroy them.
A sharp knock echoed above her.
Nyra gasped, nearly dropping the book.
"Nyra?"
Her mother's voice.
Directly above the hatch.
Too close.
Nyra scrambled, clutching the book to her chest and trying to steady her breathing.
Her mother knocked again, harder.
"Nyra, are you awake? I heard something."
Nyra looked up at the hatch.
Looked down at the book.
For the first time, she wasn't afraid of the truth.
She was afraid of the lies.
She whispered to herself:
"Mom… what are you hiding from me?"