Elara didn't touch the lantern again until the forest stopped shaking.
The vision was still fresh—too fresh. The stone bridge, the silver-cloaked figure, the cold voice warning her. None of it made sense. Visions weren't normal. Talking lanterns weren't normal. And stars definitely didn't vanish for no reason.
As she reached toward the lantern, the blue flame twitched, like something alive responding to her presence.
A sudden crack echoed in the forest.
Elara froze.
Another crack.
Like a twig snapping under a careful, heavy foot.
Something was moving between the trees—slow, cautious, deliberate.
She snatched the lantern from the root. The moment her fingers touched it, the flame swirled faster, glowing brighter, as if waking up. The forest's coldness deepened.
"Elara!" someone shouted behind her, making her jump.
She spun around to see her friend Kael, breathless and pale, holding a lantern of his own. But his was ordinary. Flickering. Human.
"What are you doing out here? The whole village is in panic!" he said, but his voice trembled. "Elara… something is wrong with the forest."
As if answering him, the trees around them creaked, bending unnaturally toward the pair. Leaves rustled despite the windless night.
And then they heard it.
A whisper.
Faint.
Not from a person—more like a breath pushing words into the air.
"Elara… bring it back…"
Kael stiffened. "That wasn't you, right?"
She shook her head.
The whisper came again, closer this time.
"Bring it baaaaack…"
Elara raised the strange lantern. The flame inside exploded with blue light, revealing a figure behind the trees—a shadow with long, crooked limbs and hollow eyes reflecting the lantern's glow.
Kael stepped backward, nearly tripping.
"What IS that?!"
The creature extended an arm that stretched too far, as though made of smoke.
"Elara… the lantern… belongs… to usss…"
Before Elara could react, the lantern's flame shot a beam of light outward. The shadow shrieked—its voice scraping the air like metal on stone—before dissolving into a cloud of black ash.
The forest went silent again.
Elara and Kael stared at the lantern in her hands.
"That thing was after this," she whispered.
Kael swallowed hard. "Then whatever that lantern is… it's dangerous."
"No," she said softly. "It's more than that. It's calling something."
She looked at the flame. It pulsed once, as if confirming.
"It wants me to follow."