The ground beneath him erupted.
It happened all at once—a violent, impossible rupture of reality itself. Windows exploded outward in cascades of glittering shards. Tables and chairs launched into the air, spinning wildly before crashing down. The walls around him fractured like ancient stone, great cracks spreading like lightning across their surface before they crumbled entirely into dust and rubble.
Through the chaos, through the deafening roar of destruction, he saw something approaching. Something vast. Something terrible. Something that his mind couldn't fully comprehend, yet his eyes couldn't look away from.
He was just a young man—seventeen years old—still wearing the black suit and tie from the party he'd attended earlier that evening. The silk fabric now felt suffocating against his skin. It had been such a long night. His body was heavy with exhaustion, but his mind wouldn't rest. Worry gnawed at him like a persistent ache.
At the party, he had seen something. Something unusual. Something wrong. The memory of it had filled his mind with a creeping dread that followed him all the way home, clinging to his thoughts like a shadow.
When he finally returned to the mansion, he'd gone straight to his room. He sat down heavily in front of the ornate mirror on his vanity, staring at his own reflection. But this wasn't just a casual glance—there was a deeper meaning behind it. He was searching for something in his own face. Searching for answers. Searching for signs that everything was still normal.
Then his eyes changed.
They turned red—a deep, unnatural crimson that seemed to glow from within.
Blood began streaming down his face, hot trails running from his eyes down his cheeks.
And then he saw it. A vision.
Not a dream. Not a hallucination. A *vision*.
A presence materialized before him—or rather, the absence of presence. It had no body, no shape, no form that his mind could latch onto. It was simply there: an evil force of pure darkness, ancient beyond measure and terrifyingly wise.
It leaned closer, though it had nothing to lean with.
And it whispered, its voice like wind through a cemetery: *"The curse of the unknown follows you."*
The moment those words touched his mind, the dream transformed into reality.
The world trembled violently around him. The floor bucked and heaved. He tried to move, tried to run, tried to scream—but his body refused to obey. His limbs were frozen, locked in place by some invisible force. He could only watch in helpless terror as a massive eye, larger than any building, began emerging from the ground beneath him. The earth split apart to birth it into existence.
And then, impossibly, another eye descended from the sky above, slowly lowering through the clouds like a god observing an insect.
The two eyes focused on him.
Him alone.
His own eyes closed involuntarily as darkness rushed in from all sides, swallowing everything—the room, the mansion, the world itself—until there was nothing left but an absolute, suffocating void.
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Then he woke up.
Aster's eyes snapped open, and he gasped for air as if he'd been drowning. His heart hammered against his ribcage. Sweat soaked through his expensive suit. He sat up quickly, looking around his room in wild panic.
Everything was normal. The walls were intact. The furniture was in place. No blood. No eyes. No darkness.
He grabbed his pocket watch from the nightstand with trembling fingers. 11:30 PM.
It was still nighttime—the same night he'd returned from the party. Through the window, he could see the sky was beautiful, peaceful even. Stars shone bright against the velvet darkness like diamonds scattered across black silk. He must have fallen asleep in his chair the moment he got home, exhausted from the evening's events.
*Just a dream*, he told himself. *It was just a bad dream.*
He stood up shakily, his legs weak beneath him, and made his way to the attached washroom. He needed to clear his head, wash away the lingering terror that clung to his skin like cobwebs.
At the marble sink, he turned on the faucet and splashed cold water on his face. Then he looked up at the mirror, half-afraid of what he might see.
His reflection stared back at him. Normal brown eyes. No red. No blood streaming down his face. Just him—Aster Thornwood, seventeen years old, looking tired and slightly disheveled in his party attire.
His mind began to settle back to some semblance of normal. His breathing slowed. The panic subsided to a dull anxiety.
He grabbed a towel and wiped his face dry. "So it was just a bad dream?" he said aloud to his reflection, as if saying it out loud would make it more true.
But as he returned to his bedroom, the unease crept back in. He couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. Something was terribly, fundamentally wrong, and it was lurking just beyond his ability to perceive it clearly. A presence hovering at the edge of his awareness, watching. Waiting.
He tried to tell himself it was only the dream haunting him. That's all it was. His subconscious playing tricks after a stressful evening. Nothing more.
His bedroom was exactly as he'd left it before the party—large and opulent, befitting his family's status. He sat down in his favorite chair, the one positioned before his grand piano. Books were stacked neatly on the piano's surface, their leather spines gleaming in the dim light. Paintings of himself at various ages hung across the walls—his mother had insisted on commissioning them throughout his childhood. The window directly in front of him offered a perfect view of the night sky and the sprawling gardens below.
Blue-colored torches burned in ornate wall sconces, and crystal lanterns placed strategically around the room cast a soft, ethereal glow. The entire mansion was enormous—far too large for just their family—with dozens of rooms spread across multiple floors. Sometimes Aster felt like he could get lost in his own home.
As he sat there, trying to calm his racing thoughts, his mind drifted back to the party. To the real reason he felt so unsettled tonight.
*At the party, I had the perfect chance*, he thought, a familiar ache settling in his chest. *I could have done it. I could have approached her. But I'm too scared.*
There had been someone there—someone he admired deeply, someone who made his heart race in an entirely different way than fear did. He'd seen her across the crowded hall, radiant and graceful, and he'd wanted so badly to walk over and introduce himself properly. But he'd frozen. As always. Too afraid of rejection. Too afraid of making a fool of himself in front of the city's elite.
*Coward*, he thought bitterly.
But then he looked out the window again at the beautiful night sky, and despite everything, he found himself smiling slightly. The stars were particularly bright tonight. There was something peaceful about them, something eternal and unchanging that made his worries feel small by comparison.
His eyes fell on his violin resting in its stand beside the chair. Music had always been his escape, his way of processing emotions too complex for words. His fingers itched to play.
He picked up the instrument carefully, settling it beneath his chin with practiced ease. Then he drew the bow across the strings, and the first note sang out into the quiet room.
He closed his eyes and lost himself in the melody. Everything else faded away—the dream, the party, his fears and anxieties. There was only the music, flowing from his fingers like water, filling the room with its haunting beauty. His mind found peace in the familiar patterns, the way the notes danced and wove together in perfect harmony.
For several minutes, he played without interruption, letting the violin speak what his voice could not.
But then—
*Crack.*
A sharp sound from below, from somewhere on the floor.
His eyes flew open, and he stopped playing abruptly, the bow frozen mid-stroke. His heart leaped into his throat. He looked down quickly, scanning the floor around him.
One of the crystal lanterns had fallen from the small side table. Its glass base had cracked, and oil was slowly seeping onto the hardwood floor.
He let out a long breath. "Just a lantern," he muttered. "You're being paranoid."
He was about to resume playing when—
*Thud. Thud thud thud.*
The heavy books stacked on his piano toppled over, falling onto the keys with discordant crashes before sliding off and hitting the floor with heavy thuds.
Aster jumped in his seat, his grip on the violin tightening reflexively.
His head whipped around to look at the fallen books. They lay scattered on the floor behind him, their pages splayed open. But one book in particular caught his attention—it had landed in such a way that it lay perfectly flat, open to a specific page.
He set down his violin carefully and stood up, approaching the book with a strange mixture of curiosity and dread.
The page it was open to had large, ornate text at the top.
*The Purification Spell.*
His breath caught in his throat.
With trembling hands, he picked up the book and read the first line of text: *"Purify the evil around you, for darkness feeds on the unprepared soul."*
The moment those words registered in his mind, everything went numb. The book slipped from his fingers. Time seemed to slow down.
Behind him, his violin fell from its stand, tilting toward the floor.
And before it could hit the ground, a memory struck him—sudden and violent, like a physical blow to his head.
A memory of something he had forgotten. Or something he had *tried* to forget.
*Wait... no. No way.*
At the party. Earlier tonight. He remembered now.
The man in the black suit with the blood-red tie. Standing alone in the corner of the hall. His eyes—those eyes that hadn't looked quite human. Too bright. Too aware. Too *knowing*.
*But was that a dream, or was it real?*
His own eyes widened in growing horror as the memory solidified, became more concrete.
*Was it reality?*
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