Elara wandered toward the window, drawn by a strange restlessness she couldn't name. The morning mist had thickened, curling between the trees, and the forest felt… different. Heavier. Watching.
A chill brushed her spine, though the air was warm. Goosebumps rose on her arms as though someone—or something—had just passed behind her.
She pressed her palms to the glass. The forest swayed strangely, not with the wind, but as if it were breathing, alive in ways she had never felt before.
What is happening? she whispered to herself. Why do I feel… like I'm not alone?
Somewhere deep beneath the roots of Thalorien, the vampire stirred. His senses reached outward, brushing against the world above, sensing life, motion, and her presence.
Elara shivered, unable to explain it. Her fingers tightened against the window frame.
And then, without warning, the sky darkened. Clouds rolled across the mountains with unnatural speed, swallowing the morning light.
The wind rose, shrieking through the trees, and heavy raindrops began to fall—at first a few, then a torrent that hammered against the roof and churned the forest floor into mud.
Elara stumbled back from the window, heart racing. "What… what is happening?"
Rowan's voice came from the other room. "Rain! We must secure the doors! Quickly!"
He appeared in the doorway, hair damp from the sudden downpour outside, eyes scanning the forest as he ushered her away from the window. "This is not normal," he muttered under his breath. "The forest… it senses something."
Elara clutched the back of a chair, drenched in fear and awe. "It's… it's like the forest is alive! I can feel it!"
"Yes," Rowan said softly. "Something has… awakened. Something old."
The trees outside groaned under the weight of the storm. Lightning flashed in the distance, illuminating the forest in jagged white bursts. For a heartbeat, Elara thought she saw a shadow moving faster than any animal should—sleek, deliberate, watching—but when she blinked, it was gone.
Her chest heaved. "Rowan… what is out there?"
He shook his head, voice low. "I do not know. Not yet."
And in the depths below the forest, the vampire moved easily through the dark, a predator fully awake, smiling faintly as the rainfall masked his movements. They do not know. They cannot know.
Elara wrapped herself in the blanket, trembling—not entirely from the cold, but from the sense that something powerful and unseen had just brushed against the world. Something that made the forest shiver and the air hum.
The storm raged on, rain hammering the roof, wind howling through the cracks in the old walls. And though Rowan worked quickly to secure the house, he, too, felt the subtle pull—an awareness that the awakening in the depths of Thalorien had begun.
Outside, lightning flashed again. And for the first time, Elara wondered if she had somehow… drawn it here.