The night in Kandovan was always quiet—but that night, its silence was like suffocation. The wind passing through the rocky holes made sounds like the whispers of a person begging for help from beneath the soil.
From the very second she entered the village,Sarah understood:
This place isn't"alive," it's "awake."
The people didn't look. They didn't speak. They just walked, as if searching for their own shadows. When she asked about the name "Nader," an old woman only uttered one sentence, her lips trembling:
"If you see him,it means it's too late."
On the first night, a sound from beneath the ground woke her. A sound that was neither human nor animal—something in between, and worse than both. The stone floor was slightly loose. When she moved it, cold air rushed out like a dead man's breath. Beneath it was a tunnel that no one spoke of, because no one who had gone down had ever returned.
Sarah went down with a flashlight, and from the very first step, the walls began to "whisper." Not with words—with vibrations that seemed to speak directly to the brain.
The walls were covered in lines that belonged to no known language. But their meaning was clear:
Warning.
Fear.
Victim.
Names were carved into the wall—all the victims people thought had "disappeared."
But next to some names was a symbol:an eye.
An eye that seemed to change its angle every time Sarah looked,as if it was following her.
Deeper inside, in a room, a map of all Kandovan was carved into the stone. But this map wasn't like a map of the land—it was like a map of the "village's wounds."
The center of the map was Nader's name.With an eye carved larger—and more alive—than the others.
A metal box sat in the corner. Inside, Nader's notebooks...
His sentences...
Sarah's heart sank:
"The shadow forms when the victim believes the fear."
"Whoever understands the truth becomes part of the mountain."
"The eye shows the way...or death."
A sound dragged behind her—not on the soil, on the stone.
When she turned,there was a shadow that didn't exist.
Tall.
Thin.
Bony.
Faceless,but with two empty hollows staring at her like abysses.
It swallowed the flashlight's beam.
Not that it didn't reflect—no,it "devoured" it.
Then Nader's voice came.
Not from behind.
Not from in front.
From all the walls.
From the tunnel's breath.
"Sarah... Kandovan needed a new victim. You came down yourself. It was a choice."
Nader appeared.
Or rather,"what remained of Nader."
His skin was dark,like someone light fled from.
His eyes were empty—not white,no; they were "void."
He said:
"Fear here has memory.Whoever fears, the shadow makes a copy of them.
You arrived too late...your shadow is already here."
From behind Sarah, her own shadow detached.
Separated.
Stood.
Breathed.
Sarah ran. Her shadow chased her—not like her—like a wounded animal. The stones shook. The tunnel breathed.
Light was her only refuge.
She reached the central room; the place where the large eye was carved on the wall.
Sarah pointed the flashlight directly at the eye.
The tunnel screamed.
Not like stone;like the sound of a hundred people dying at once.
The original shadow writhed, it couldn't bear the light. Nader screamed, his face cracked, something like black smoke poured out from within him.
The mountain began to collapse.
Sarah climbed up through a crevice.
The last thing she saw:Nader and the shadows weren't crushed under the falling rocks—they were swallowed, as if the mountain wanted them like its ancient food.
In the morning, the tunnel entrance was sealed.
The people just looked at her—not with fear,with "recognition."
As if they knew Sarah was no longer like the others.
As if she had become part of something she herself didn't understand.
That night in the hotel, steam settled on the window.
Sarah felt the room grow cold.
On the glass,a finger began to write from the inside:
First, an eye.
Then a sentence:
"You too have a shadow."
And her shadow smiled from behind the glass.