The alarm buzzed at 6:00 a.m., dragging Aira from dreams that felt too real.
Her hand slapped the phone off the table, and it clattered to the floor. For a moment, she just lay there, staring at the ceiling, the mark on her wrist glowing faintly beneath the sunlight streaming through her curtains.
It hadn't faded.
If anything, the shimmer had grown stronger—soft silver veins tracing up her arm before fading at her elbow.
She rubbed at it until her skin turned red. It didn't go away.
Her apartment smelled of rain and coffee. She moved through her morning in silence—toast, jeans, jacket—everything mechanical, her mind trapped somewhere between fear and denial.
Every time she blinked, she saw flashes of that coffin. The sound of the heartbeat still echoed in her chest.
She kept telling herself it had to be exhaustion, stress, anything but real.
Until her phone buzzed.
> Unknown Number: You shouldn't have gone there.
Aira froze. The message had no contact name, no profile picture, no timestamp delay. It had arrived exactly as she thought of the ruins.
Her thumb hovered over the screen.
She typed: Who is this?
The dots appeared instantly.
> Unknown: You felt it, didn't you?
It's awake now.
She deleted the conversation, tossed the phone onto the couch, and pressed both hands to her face. Her pulse raced. Her wrist burned where the mark was.
She almost didn't notice the figure standing outside her window.
A man—tall, coat dark as soot, watching her apartment from the street below. His eyes glowed faintly gold when the sunlight hit them, then dimmed.
By the time she rushed to the balcony to look again, he was gone.
---
At the hydro plant, Thane Hollow hadn't slept either. The blackout had triggered a full-system lockdown. Engineers blamed faulty circuits, but he knew better.
He had replayed the static message a hundred times, though the recording shouldn't exist—it was wiped the moment it happened. And yet, the last frame always returned: a distorted spectrogram that, when inverted, resembled a human face.
A man's face.
Thane didn't know why, but he printed it and pinned it on the board beside his workstation. Every time he looked at it, he felt watched.
"Hey, Hollow," his assistant called. "You seeing the river gauge? The level's dropping."
Thane frowned. "That's impossible. The rain last night should've raised it."
"Yeah, well—take a look."
The monitor displayed a live feed from the dam's camera. The lake's surface was rippling inward, spiraling like water being pulled into a drain.
"Shut it down," Thane said.
"Already tried," the assistant muttered. "Controls are unresponsive."
The next second, every light in the control room dimmed. The computers flickered. A low hum filled the air—steady, rhythmic.
Thane's heart sank. He recognized that rhythm. The same pulse from last night.
The same as a heartbeat.
---
Aira walked quickly to work, trying to ignore the feeling that the entire town was watching her.
The streets of Eldenmere looked the same as always—old brick cafés, cars humming past, children with backpacks—but something in the air had shifted. People moved slower, quieter. Even the wind carried a faint whisper through the trees.
By the time she reached the small bookstore where she worked, she was sweating.
The owner, Mr. Lewin, waved from behind the counter. "Morning, sunshine. You okay? You look like you saw a ghost."
She forced a smile. "Bad dreams, that's all."
He chuckled. "Welcome to Eldenmere."
She took her usual spot behind the register, stacking a shipment of old local history books. The first one she opened stopped her cold—its title: "Saint Corvin's Cathedral and the Sealed Order."
Aira flipped through the yellowed pages.
Most were faded, but one illustration stood out: a stone coffin covered in the same rune patterns she'd seen last night.
Her fingers trembled as she turned the page. The next paragraph read:
> "The last guardian of the Blood of Eternity rests beneath Eldenmere, chained by the breath of angels, bound by mortal faith. When his name is spoken again, the covenant shall break."
She shut the book. The mark on her wrist flared hot enough to make her gasp.
"Everything alright?" Mr. Lewin called.
"Yeah," she lied. "Just… paper cut."
She excused herself to the storage room, closed the door, and sank to the floor.
The mark pulsed in time with her heartbeat, faster, harder—until suddenly it stopped.
Complete silence.
Then she heard a whisper inside her head, faint and ancient.
"Blood answers blood."
She looked down. Her wrist shimmered, and for a second, she thought she saw another hand—larger, ghostly pale—pressing against her skin from beneath.
A loud crash outside made her jump.
She ran out to the front and froze.
The window was shattered, books scattered everywhere. In the center of the floor stood the same man she'd seen from the street earlier.
He looked human, but his presence bent the room's air like heat haze. His coat dripped with rain though it wasn't raining. His eyes, up close, were gold—ancient and calm.
He spoke first. "You opened the seal."
"I—I didn't mean to," Aira stammered.
"You touched the mark."
He stepped closer. "It chose you."
Mr. Lewin burst from the back room, holding a bat. "Hey! Get out of my store!"
The man turned slowly. His gaze met Lewin's.
The owner froze mid-step, eyes wide, body stiff. The bat slipped from his hand.
Aira screamed, rushing toward him. "Stop! Don't hurt him!"
The stranger sighed, and the pressure in the room vanished. Lewin gasped, dropping to his knees, pale and shaking.
"I won't harm him," the man said softly. "But you must leave Eldenmere tonight. Before they smell your blood."
"Who?" Aira asked, voice trembling.
He looked out the window toward the woods. "The ones who kept him asleep."
---
By dusk, the town had changed.
Fog rolled in thick and fast, swallowing the streets. Dogs barked, then went silent.
From the woods, faint howls echoed—too many, too close.
Thane Hollow stood outside the hydro plant, watching the lake ripple under the dying light. He didn't notice the figures moving through the trees until it was too late.
Their eyes glowed amber, their movements too quick to follow.
One of them stopped at the treeline, lifting its head to sniff the air.
Its lips pulled back from long, sharp teeth.
Thane took a step back. "What the hell…"
The creature tilted its head. "Blood has stirred."
Thane ran for his truck, but the words followed him—whispered, echoing in his head though no mouth moved.
"Blood has stirred. The Lord remembers."
---
Back at her apartment, Aira packed a single bag. She didn't know where to go or why she believed the stranger, but something in his voice had felt true.
The moment she stepped outside, she saw him again—leaning against a lamppost like he'd been waiting all day.
He handed her an umbrella. "You'll need this."
She hesitated. "You still haven't told me your name."
"I don't have one anymore." He looked up at the sky. "Not one the living can pronounce."
Lightning flashed far away over the lake. For a split second, his reflection in the window beside them wasn't human—it was shadow and wings.
Aira's throat went dry. "What are you?"
He turned his gaze back to her, golden eyes flickering like dying stars.
"I am what was left behind when your kind chose to forget."
The streetlight above them buzzed and went out.
And as they disappeared into the fog, something deep beneath Eldenmere opened its eyes again.
The heartbeat quickened.
The pulse had begun to spread.