The forest recognized her. Not as a wanderer, but as a lost part of itself.
The trunks of the trees were black, twisted, like ribs protruding from the earth. Branches carved forgotten names into one another, while dead leaves whispered prayers to gods who never existed. The air smelled of mold, broken bones, and burnt resin. A heavy, blue mist flowed among the trees like a faceless ghost. And above—the moon, heavy and silent, dripped its light over the world like a blade.
Elena walked barefoot, her warm blood mixing into the damp earth. She no longer ran. She no longer trembled. She no longer awaited rescue. She was drawn, carried, brought here not by fear, but by something older than fear: a calling.
She felt the forest watching her. Felt the roots shifting their course beneath her. Felt the trees trembling, not from wind, but from recognition. They were witnesses. They were parents. They were graves.
Having reached their depths, where the trees formed a crooked circle, open like a wound, Elena fell to her knees. The ground was soft, wet, warm—like the skin of a mother who has ceased weeping. She raised her eyes to the sky, and her voice burst forth, raw like broken laughter:
"Come! Do you hear me? I summon you!"
Silence.
"You dreamed of me! You watched over me! You chose me!"
Silence.
"COME! NOW!"
But no one came. No shadow. No whisper. Only the deep silence of the forest—the kind that doesn't soothe, but crushes. The air grew colder. Leaves settled around her like powerless fingers.
Elena slumped onto her elbows. She wept. Not from weakness, but from the shame of being forgotten. Her tears were not warm, but cold, cutting, like icy needles melting straight into the earth. She wept because she no longer knew if she'd ever truly been chosen, or merely dreamed she was worthy of salvation.
"Why don't you come? Why... why don't you come?"
With dirty hands and blood still fresh upon her knees, Elena stood up. Slowly. She looked around—and spoke to the trees.
"If you have accepted me, show me the way. If I am yours, give me a sign. If not... tear me apart and bury my flesh among you. But don't leave me like this. Not with silence."
Then, the forest answered. Not with a voice. Not with wind. But with a deep shudder, rising from beneath the earth, ascending through trunks like the sigh of a heart too ancient to keep beating. Leaves rose as in a dance of the dead, and smoke—blue, thick, sacred—seeped from among the roots, covering everything. Outlines melted away. The lines of the world unraveled. The air grew heavy, as before a prayer capable of destroying all.
And then, into Elena's mind crept a voice. Not human. Not spirit. But a form of thought, of blood, of memory. Words came from her bones, from shadows she'd carried since birth.
Voco te, umbra mea. Sanguis me ducit. Lux non e mea cale.
Elena did not ask what they meant. She felt no fear. She spoke them clearly, with the certainty of those who have finally arrived where they were always meant to be.
"Voco te, umbra mea. Sanguis me ducit. Lux non e mea cale. I summon you, my shadow. Blood guides me. Light is not my path."
The air fractured. The earth trembled. The sky did not fall—but it bent closer.
And then, he arrived.
First, silence became deeper than death. Then, from the mist, a silhouette drew itself forth. Initially, she saw only his shadow—far too tall, with shoulders like folded wings, moving not by touching the earth, but by dividing it.
He did not step. He did not glide. He detached himself from the world as if he had always been there, invisible to mortal eyes.
His body was cloaked in a mantle of black smoke, gently moving, like a living animal. His skin—if one could call it that—was pale, faintly shimmering, like the surface of a river at night. Upon his shoulders, he bore no ornaments, only marks—long red streaks like deep scratches left by desperate people who had once tried to escape his grasp. They didn't bleed, yet they appeared alive, forever fresh, like wounds that would never close. His fingers—long, sharp, blackened at the tips—seemed fashioned to both tear and caress with equal intent. Around his head burned a faint, red-orange glow, like a crown of silent fire. It did not scorch his skin but made it pulse—a halo of ancestral curse, flames that consumed nothing but silence and memory.
His face was terrifyingly beautiful. Not because it was harmonious—but because it was impossible to comprehend. Each moment Elena looked at him, he changed. At times youthful, then ancient. Sometimes alive, then again a statue worn by wind. His mouth did not smile, yet carried traces of kisses interrupted before they could finish. And the eyes…
His eyes had no irises. No pupils. Just two black voids, burning from within. Like open doors to another world—a world without time, without flesh, without pain.
Elena felt her knees weaken. Not from fear, but recognition. Every fiber of her being knew who he was. She had dreamed him. Carried him in her body, her blood, her nightmares. She had rejected him. She had awaited him. And yet—now, standing before him, she was not prepared.
Her heart pounded in her temples. Her skin tightened around her ribs. Yet, she remained standing.
He stopped a few steps away. He looked at her. Not with desire. Not with contempt. With certainty.
He raised his head slightly, and his voice—low, like a song from within a cavern—uttered:
"Elena."
Just that. Her name.
And with that single word, the entire forest shuddered. Branches slowly bowed, leaves ceased trembling. The world melted into a moment of reverence—as if a covenant had been fulfilled by the mere speaking of a name.
Elena did not lower her head. He watched her closely, his gaze seeming to pierce through flesh.
"Why did you summon me?" he asked, his voice slicing the air like a finely sharpened blade.
Elena blinked with difficulty, as though her eyes struggled to remain open before an ancient, blinding light.
"I want power," she said. "The power never again to be a victim. The power to never let anyone else decide what kind of life I live, how long I survive, how much I bleed, how much I weep. I want... to belong only to myself."
Silence. Then he smiled—a smile so slight it was nearly imperceptible, yet it made the air around them tremble.
"Power demands a price, Elena. Always. What will you give me in return?"
"Anything," she said.
The demon laughed. A short, sharp laugh that made the shadows bristle around them. A laugh devoid of anything human—and precisely because of that, it frightened her.
"Don't you know 'anything' is too much for anyone?" he asked, without raising his voice.
Then, with a clarity that ripped through the air:
"I want something that cannot be taken back. I want a soul."
Elena was silent. Her breath halted momentarily. She looked at him without blinking.
"A soul for a life. That is the price," he said. "I want the soul of your firstborn."
Silence. Elena did not waver.
"Fine."
"Do you understand what that means?"
"No. But I know that I'm more afraid of remaining as I am than letting you take what you desire."
The forest sighed. A deep rustle, like a chorus of ancient leaves. Elena lifted her chin.
"If I give you his life… will you break the chains?"
The demon drew closer. Very slowly. A moment—and there was no more air between them. Only tension. Power. Agreement.
"If you give me his life, I will break the world."
"Then I will give him to you."
A strange, almost melancholy smile crossed the demon's face.
Elena clenched her fingers, blood pulsing in her temples. In her mind, the image of a child began to form, but it was only an illusion. It could not be real. Not after she had been broken, emptied, beaten, and abandoned.
"I will never have a child," she told herself. "I can't. I don't want one. There's no room in me for life."
The promise she was making didn't seem sinful—it seemed intelligent. An impossible exchange for real gain. An illusory sacrifice for tangible power.
"His soul is yours," she said.
The demon nodded. The forest turned to stone around them.
She did not hesitate. Blood stained her hands, bones ached in her body, and her soul—the one that perhaps once dreamed of love—had been torn apart by filthy hands and foreign desires. She thought of the mother who had abandoned her through death, leaving her nothing but silence. Of the father who had sold her without a second thought, like a beast of burden, in exchange for a paltry profit and guilty peace. Of the village that had never seen her as a child, only as a strangeness, a disgrace, a walking sin—mocking her with cold laughter, averted gazes, stones hidden in pockets. And above all, of the husband who had never wanted her, merely desired her—to break her, dominate her, reduce her to absolute silence. Each thought was a step towards fresh hatred, a new layer fueling the fire within her. Instead of tears, she felt in her heart a scream rising that even the gods would be unable to silence.
"I offer you what I will never have," she whispered. "The soul of my firstborn child."
The demon said nothing. No muscle moved beneath his shadowy form; no twitch revealed his thoughts. And yet, something—perhaps the air, perhaps the earth, perhaps Elena's very skin—felt a wave of satisfaction radiating from him. A deep, cold, undeniable satisfaction, as if this entire pact had not only been desired, but anticipated. It suited him. He favored this bargain. And for him, that was all that mattered. The forest understood, and murmured its acceptance.
"The pact is sealed," he spoke in words that scorched the air. Sanguinem meum libo. Sanguinem eius tibi polliceor.(I offer my blood. You offer me his blood.)
Then he lifted a single hand and, with his index finger, lightly touched her forehead. Just a faint brush, like a breeze. But the pain that followed was unlike any wound she'd ever known.
Elena's skin reddened, then split open, burning beneath his touch. A symbol etched itself into her flesh—not with ink, but with fire. From where his finger touched, a thorn rose from her forehead. Then another. And another. Each emerged with a wet crack, as though her skin were fertile soil and the thorns seeds of a blossoming curse. They curled along her flesh, climbed her temples, encircling her head. It was no crown of gold, but one of thorns—alive, unforgiving, bloodied. An ancient wound now made symbol. Blood dripped through the spikes, falling in concentric circles onto the moist earth, like a sacred seal.
Her bones pulsed violently. Magic felt like an invasion, as if her entire body had suddenly become home to another force. It was too much energy, too much life, too much death—all at once.
Elena screamed. Not in pain. But in recognition. In acceptance. It was a raw, deep, hoarse sound, torn from a throat that had forgotten speech yet was now learning the words of the covenant.
Blood streamed from fresh wounds on her forehead, trickled down her face, mixing with sweat and dirt. Wherever it touched the ground, the soil turned black. Roots shuddered beneath. The leaves around her began trembling, then lifted into the air—all at once, pulled by an unseen power.
This wasn't pain. This was birth. A new self.
Elena stood motionless, her body trembling, her eyes open yet empty. She felt she was no longer the same. The old world had crumbled around her, and she had been rebuilt from the fallen stones of that abyss. She was no longer just Elena. She was the echo of an ancient choice, sculpted by suffering and broken promises.
The demon watched her—not triumphantly, not angrily—but gratefully.
Then, slowly, without a single sudden movement, his body began to unravel. Not into smoke. Not into ash. Into nothingness. Like silence withdrawing. Like a shadow melting back into the night.
Elena stared after him, cracked lips parted, her soul still aflame with the freshly sealed covenant. And then, from a corner of courage—or perhaps desperation—she asked:
"What is your name?"
Silence.
The demon halted his dissolution. He turned his head slightly over his shoulder, shadows gathering upon his face like a mask of smoke.
He smiled—not gently, but with the irony of one who has lived too long to ever again be surprised.
"Now you ask? It's too late, Elena. Far too late."
His voice was lower than a whisper, colder than a broken promise.
"My name was not meant for mortal lips to speak."
He departed—not like a satisfied demon, but like a being who had just received something he had sought for an eternity.
Overwhelmed by pain, Elena collapsed. Her body fell heavily, like a doll made of flesh and shattered dreams. As she fell, a final echo resonated through the dense, blue air:
— Sanguis meus... porta est.
(My blood... is the gate.)
The forest vanished.
Everything became white. Then red. Then nothing.
Elena lay on the ground, pale, her body sticky with sweat and blood. Her skin throbbed, hair clinging to her temples. Her breathing was ragged—but she was not dead. Above her—the moon trembled, like an open wound in the sky.
She drifted in delirium for hours, suspended between dream and reality. In reality, pain tore at her—a thick, animalistic agony, beyond naming. But in her dreams... in her dreams, she was not alone.
He—the demon—was there. Not far away, but close. His knee beside her hip. His hand suspended just above her crown of thorns. He watched over her.
He leaned closer, his lips barely moving. His whisper brushed her ear like a burning touch:
"You gave me life. I gave you death. Let us see what grows from them."
Elena could not reply. But she heard him. She felt him.
Then she awoke. And the pain struck her fully, violently, like a wave of fire. It stole the air from her lungs and the thoughts from her mind. She begged to lose consciousness again—anything, if only to escape the agony. Her bones betrayed her, her skin burned, and her blood felt as if it had been replaced with smoldering embers. In those moments, the dream seemed a fragment of paradise, an oasis of darkness in which he was always present, ready to infuse her with another dose of power. There, pain had no voice, and the demon was the quiet between two wars.
He smiled. A strange, silent smile that contained neither mercy nor cruelty. Only the assurance of one who had finally received what he'd always desired.
"You've done it," he said. "You gave me what I sought."
Elena felt a surge of dread pass through her. Not because she didn't understand—but because, suddenly, she did. With painful clarity, with a certainty that made her shudder.
"How could someone like him be fooled? A demon? With a lie? With a hope that I would never bear a child?"
In the dream, she wore no dress, no armor. She was only herself. Emptied of illusions. And around her, in the soft, cold air, his words carried weight:
"I've won," the demon whispered. "The blood that is to be mine… is already on its way."
Elena tensed. For a moment, the dream seemed to falter. No more certainty. No more power. Only fear—a bitter, deep fear, the kind that doesn't scream but lodges in the chest like a nail driven between ribs.
"I was wrong. He's defeated me. He knew from the start. He let me believe."
And then, for the first time since sealing the pact, Elena felt the cold shiver of doubt. She wasn't pregnant. She felt nothing different in her body. Yet the dream made clear that something had moved beyond her will.
When she opened her eyes, her body was cold, drenched in sweat. Her palms lay on her belly, yet she felt nothing new there. Only fear. And the beginnings of distrust. In herself. In the pact. In the promise she had made.
"What if he knew all along?"
And in the blood still pulsing from the wounds upon her forehead, the words came no longer as a blessing, but as a tainted prophecy:
"Your blood will be the gate. And that gate will burn the world."