Elias Ward arrived in the town just after sunset, when the sky was bruised purple and the road behind him was little more than a fading line. He stopped at the edge of the main street, letting the engine of his old car tick cool beneath him. A single wooden sign greeted him:
WELCOME TO GREYDAWN
Population:
The number was missing. Not scratched off, not faded. Just never written.
Elias stared at it a moment longer than necessary, then exhaled. "Perfect," he murmured because a place forgotten by everyone else felt, in a strange way, exactly right for him.
The grief he carried had been growing heavier the farther he traveled, but he had learned to tuck it into the quiet spaces of his mind. Silence and distance were the only things he wanted now. Grey dawn air pressed against his skin as he stepped out of the car, cool and unnervingly still. There was no breeze. No birds. Just the sound of his boots against gravel.
The town looked harmless enough. A single road, a row of shops with their lights half-dimmed, an inn with a crooked lantern swinging lazily though there was no wind to move it. Faded paint, quiet streets, the smell of dust. Nothing unusual. Nothing threatening.
And yet… something felt slightly off, like a painting with one shadow drawn in the wrong direction.
He checked his watch. 7:14 p.m. The second hand stuttered once, then continued. Elias frowned at it but slipped it back onto his wrist.
He crossed the street and headed toward the inn. The windows were smudged and crooked, the sign reading The Haven barely hanging from rusty chains. He pushed the door open. A bell above it chimed a single, flat note.
Inside, the inn smelled of old wood and something faintly sweet—lavender, maybe, or something pretending to be lavender. A woman appeared from behind the counter, startled at the sound of the bell.
"Oh—hello," she said, smoothing her apron. "We don't get many visitors at this hour."
"Or any hour," Elias thought, but he simply offered a polite nod. "Just passing through. I'd like a room for the night."
Her eyes drifted over him, not in suspicion but with a distant, distracted haze, as if her thoughts kept slipping sideways. Still, she handed him a brass key with a faded wooden tag.
"Room 3, up the stairs. Breakfast is at seven. If you need anything, just ring the bell."
"Thank you," Elias said.
But as she turned away, her face twitched with something like confusion—almost as if she'd already forgotten speaking to him.
He went upstairs. The hallway stretched longer than the building seemed from the outside, narrow and dim. His footsteps echoed too loudly. He found Room 3, unlocked it, and stepped inside.
The room was plain: a small bed, a single window looking out at the street, wallpaper peeling in thin curls. Elias dropped his bag onto the chair, then sat on the edge of the bed.
For the first time in weeks, he felt the weight of silence settle around him—real silence, the kind that pressed itself into your ribs. He closed his eyes.
He had hoped distance would help him forget the last year. The arguments, the apologies that came too late, the accident that stole the one person who made him feel anchored. Running from memory felt easier than holding it.
But grief was persistent. It traveled well.
He lay back, opened the small notebook he kept in his jacket, and wrote a single line:
Arrived in Greydawn. Quiet. Feels suspended in time.
He didn't know why he felt the need to record such a simple detail. Maybe habit. Maybe instinct. Maybe something else.
A floorboard creaked in the hallway.
Elias sat up.
The sound repeated—slow, steady, like someone walking at an unhurried pace. But the footsteps never reached the door. They just continued… and continued… and continued.
He checked the hallway once, found it empty, then returned to bed. The moment he sat down, the footsteps stopped.
When morning came, thin light filtered through the curtains, grey and cold. Elias stretched, grabbed his journal, and headed downstairs.
The innkeeper stood behind the counter, sorting papers. She didn't look up as he approached.
"Good morning," Elias said.
She blinked, startled, as if seeing him for the first time. "Oh—hello there. Can I help you?"
Elias hesitated. "I stayed here last night. Room 3."
Her brow creased. "Sir, we didn't have any guests last night. We weren't even offering rooms."
He waited for the grin that would reveal a joke, but it didn't come. Her eyes remained politely confused.
"My key?" he said slowly, holding it up.
The woman stared at it, then at him. Her lips parted, but whatever she was about to say died in her throat. Instead, she stepped back as though a draft had brushed past her.
"I… She murmured, "I'm not sure how you got that."
A chill threaded down Elias' spine.
He was about to reply when the front door cracked open. He turned. A young woman stood in the doorway, her dark hair tangled by sleep or fear, clutching a silver locket so tightly her knuckles paled.
Her eyes met his.
"You're new here," she said—quiet, breathless. "And they've already forgotten you."
Elias opened his mouth, but she shook her head sharply, eyes darting to the innkeeper.
"Come with me," she murmured. "Please. Before the town decides what to do with you."
The innkeeper stared blankly at Elias, as if searching for a memory she could no longer grasp.
Elias took one last look around the dim room, then followed the girl out into the colorless morning—into a town that felt like it was holding its breath.
And somewhere deep beneath the ground, something shifted.