We’d been walking since sunrise.
No monsters. No ambushes. No sudden portals or cryptic messages from the System. Just endless dirt roads, sun-scorched fields, and the steady rhythm of boots on packed earth. The kind of quiet day that should’ve made me feel relaxed.
It didn’t.
Because the sun was starting to dip now, painting the sky in washed-out golds and purples, and the village ahead of us?
It didn’t look right.
It should’ve been welcoming—quaint, even. Fences lined with climbing ivy, neatly tilled farmland, a stone well in the square. Everything was in its place.
Except the people.
There were no voices. No children laughing. No distant dogs barking or livestock rustling in pens. Just the dry whisper of wind through the wheat and the sound of our own footsteps as we followed the main path in.
My eyes scanned the rooftops. No chimney smoke. No open windows. Nothing but shut doors and drawn curtains.
Too quiet.
The kind that made my skin itch and my thoughts spiral.
I found myself glancing back at the road behind us, even though I knew nothing was there—just fields, dust, and the last few rays of sun clinging to the edges of the world. But it was enough to pull my thoughts backward. To her.
I hadn’t told my mom everything. Not about the orb. Not about the purple portals. Not about Cassian.
But I had told her I was going to Maldon.
“I just need to do some research,” I’d said, trying to make it sound simple. Like I was heading to the capital to poke around a few dusty shelves, not chase answers through glitching dungeons and cursed towers. “There’s stuff I need to understand. About being Chosen. About… me.”
She hadn’t argued. Not really.
She’d looked at me the way she always did when she knew she couldn’t stop me—like she was trying to memorize my face in case it was the last time she saw it. Like maybe if she stared hard enough, she could keep me safe from whatever this new life was turning me into.
“You never wanted this, Felix,” she said, voice soft. “Not really.”
I didn’t answer. Because she was right. I hadn’t.
But here I was anyway. Following roads I hadn’t chosen. Into villages that felt wrong. With a satchel full of secrets and a group of people I barely knew.
The Chosen life had wrapped its claws around me the second that system message appeared. I’d tried to resist it. Tried to pretend I could just skate by, keep my head down, survive.
But it wasn’t survival anymore. Not really.
It was becoming something else.
Something bigger.
 
Thorne slowed beside me, pulling my attention back to the present. She had one hand already resting on her sword hilt. “Something’s wrong.”
No one argued.
Garrick, ever the practical one, cleared his throat. “Could be they’ve had trouble with bandits. Or another group of Chosen passing through. Not everyone greets strangers with open arms.”
“Maybe,” I muttered, but I wasn’t buying it. Not entirely.
Then, movement—just a flicker in the corner of my eye.
I turned fast.
A small face peered through a dusty window, wide eyes staring at us with something between fear and hope.
Then, in a blink, they were gone—yanked backward by someone else. The curtain dropped. The window slammed shut.
All down the road, doors creaked closed. Shutters clacked into place like teeth locking tight.
A whole village retreating into silence.
Calla let out a slow breath. “This isn’t fear of strangers,” she said, voice low. “This feels… magical.”
Her eyes flicked toward the treetops, as if she expected something to be watching us from the shadows.
Thorne didn’t say anything else. Just adjusted her grip on the sword and kept walking, boots landing a little heavier than before.
I stayed close to the center of the path, scanning every building, every corner.
I didn’t know what we’d walked into.
But whatever it was?
It didn’t want to be seen.
And the people here?
They were already trying to disappear.
 
We didn’t make it more than a dozen steps deeper into the village before someone finally appeared.
A man staggered out from between two houses, clutching a rusted farming tool like it was a weapon. His eyes were sunken, his shirt soaked through with sweat, and his hands shook as he pointed the tool toward us.
“Turn around,” he barked. “You don’t belong here.”
We all froze.
The sun was still hanging low behind us, casting his shadow long across the road. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days—maybe weeks—and the way he was holding that tool made it clear he wasn’t looking for a chat.
Thorne stepped forward, slow and measured, one hand still resting on the hilt of her blade.
“We’re not here to cause trouble,” she said evenly. “We just need a place to rest.”
“Then keep walking,” the man snapped. “It’ll smell new blood. You stop here—you’ll bring it back.”If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“It?” Garrick asked, stepping up beside Thorne. His voice stayed calm, but I could tell by the tension in his shoulders that he was ready to move fast if this guy decided to get brave. “What exactly are you talking about?”
The man shook his head, eyes wild. “Doesn’t matter. Not if you’re smart. Just go. Please.”
His voice shook on that last word.
Behind him, I noticed something.
One of the doors—weather-worn and cracked—had a symbol scratched into the wood. Sloppy, but deliberate. A spiral with jagged edges, etched deep enough to splinter the grain.
It wasn’t decorative.
I tilted my head slightly, trying to read it. A ward, maybe. Or a protection charm. It felt old. Wrong. Like something drawn from memory instead of any real understanding of magic.
Whatever it was, it clearly hadn’t worked.
I didn’t say anything yet. Just filed it away.
Thorne raised both hands slowly. “We’re not looking to stay long. Just tell us what’s going on. We might be able to help.”
The man’s expression twisted into something between fear and pity. “That’s what the last ones said.”
He turned without another word and retreated back into the alley, vanishing behind a crooked door. A second later, we heard the latch slam shut. Then a second. Then a third.
Metal on wood. Bolts sliding into place.
The village sealed itself back up like a wound trying to close before it bled out.
We stood there in the road, surrounded by silence and empty windows.
I glanced at the others.
Calla’s jaw was set.
Garrick’s brow was furrowed.
Thorne’s fingers hadn’t left her sword.
Whatever this place was dealing with, it wasn’t just superstition.
Something real had them scared.
 
At the far end of the village, where the cracked road gave way to hard-packed earth and dry grass, a single porch light flickered dimly in the setting sun.
It wasn’t much. Just an old lantern swinging gently above the doorway of a weather-worn farmhouse. The kind of light that wasn’t trying to banish the dark—just trying not to be forgotten by it.
A man sat on the steps beneath it, hunched low, elbows resting on his knees. He didn’t look up as we approached. Didn’t move. Just sat there, still as stone, eyes lost somewhere in the dirt. His face was streaked with dried tears, and his hands—calloused and cracked—were folded loosely in his lap like he’d been holding onto something and finally let go.
No one else was around.
No doors slamming.
No shutters creaking.
Just him.
We stopped a few paces back, giving him space. No one wanted to be the first to speak.
But finally, he broke the silence himself.
“I’m not running,” he said, voice low and hoarse. “Not again.”
He didn’t sound defiant.
He sounded tired. The kind of tired that came from trying to hold a life together with two hands and watching it slip through your fingers, anyway.
Thorne glanced at me, then stepped forward carefully. “We’re not here to scare anyone,” she said. “We just want to know what’s going on.”
The man gave a short, humorless laugh. “That makes two of us.”
He looked up for the first time, and the bags under his eyes were deep enough to drown in.
“Started with the goats,” he said. “Pen was fine. No broken boards. No blood. Just… gone. Like something plucked ‘em out of the world.”
He sniffed, wiping at his face absently. “Figured it was thieves. Then the cow went missing. Big girl. Sweet thing. She didn’t make a sound. One night she was there, next morning? Barn was open, and the ground was torn up like a storm came through.”
Calla frowned. “No tracks?”
He shook his head. “Not that I could find. Just scratch marks. Deep ones. Didn’t match any tool I know.”
“What about the village dogs?” Garrick asked quietly.
The farmer’s eyes flicked to him. “Gone too. Even old Rigsby. That mutt even barked at clouds. If he saw something out there, we never heard about it.”
He leaned back slowly, shoulders sagging. “My wife took the kids and went to her sister’s three days ago. Said I should come too. But this is my land. My animals. I couldn’t just leave ‘em.”
His voice cracked on that last part. Not from drama. From grief.
“I lit the torch last night. Swear I saw something moving out in the fields. Tall. Low to the ground. But by the time I got to the edge of the barn, it was gone.”
His hand drifted to his side, resting against a small, worn leather pouch—probably tools, maybe coins, maybe something else.
“If you’re here to help…” he said slowly, “then fine. I’m past caring what you want in return.”
He looked out toward the darkening fields.
“And if not?” He sighed. “Just sit with me for a while. Before whatever took the last of my animals comes back for me.”
I didn’t say anything.
None of us did.
But when Thorne lowered her hand from her blade, when Calla stepped beside me and crossed her arms, when Garrick sat on the edge of the porch without a word—
That was our answer.
We weren’t walking away.
Not from this.
It was our duty as Chosen to help those who couldn’t help themselves.
 
We moved away from the porch in silence, boots crunching against gravel and brittle weeds. The lantern’s flickering glow dimmed behind us, swallowed slowly by the dusk. But I could still feel the burden of that man’s voice clinging to my thoughts.
Garrick was the one who broke the stillness, crossing his arms with a grunt. “This feels like a Chosen’s job,” he said. “Quiet people like that? The world forgets them. But we’ve got power. We’ve got a chance to make that mean something.”
He wasn’t angry. Just solid. Certain. Like he’d been waiting for someone to need saving.
Calla gave a small nod. “If there’s something out there that’s smart enough to hide its tracks, that’s not just a hungry beast. That’s a threat. One that won’t stop at cows and goats.”
Thorne scoffed, adjusting the strap on her shoulder guard. “We don’t even know what it is. Could be a rogue summon. Could be some mana-mutated raccoon for all we know. We’re two days from Maldon—we don’t have time to get dragged into side quests.”
“But if we don’t help,” Garrick said, “someone else could die.”
Thorne didn’t argue.
Not out loud.
I stayed quiet, eyes on the dirt.
It would’ve been easy to agree with her. We had a goal. A destination. Maldon wasn’t getting any closer. And yet—
That man’s voice echoed in my head.
“Just sit with me for a while. Before whatever took the last of my animals comes back for me.”
He wasn’t trying to guilt us. He wasn’t even asking for help. He was just done. Out of hope. Out of options.
And I’d seen enough people reach that point already.
“We’ll set up camp nearby,” I said finally. My voice was soft, but steady. “We watch the fields. We kill whatever this is. Then we move on.”
Thorne let out an exasperated sigh. “Fine. One night.”
“Just one,” I said.
Calla glanced back toward the porch. “Let’s hope it’s enough.”
 
We set up camp just beyond the village edge, where the grass grew tall and wild against the split-rail fence lining the fields. The last light of the sun was gone, swallowed by creeping shadows and the slow crawl of stars. Night had arrived quietly—no birds, no insects, just the soft whistle of wind through the weeds.
Calla moved with practiced ease, planting her staff into the soil at the center of our makeshift circle. A shimmer pulsed from the tip—soft, silvery-blue magic spreading outward like ripples on a pond. It flickered once, then solidified into a faint dome, barely visible unless you looked directly at it.
“Barrier’s up,” she murmured, stepping back. “Won’t stop anything serious. But it’ll give us a warning.”
Garrick sat on a flat stone nearby, methodically cleaning the edge of his Warhammer with a strip of oiled cloth. Slow, deliberate movements. His armor lay beside him in pieces, catching glints of starlight. He wasn’t tense exactly—but there was a heaviness to his silence. Like he was trying to stay grounded. Or maybe just ready.
Thorne stalked the perimeter in near silence, boots muffled against the dry earth. She didn’t say much—just moved, checking every fence post, every patch of disturbed soil, every shadow that looked a little too deep.
I stayed close to the fire, hunched on my pack with my daggers resting in my lap. I wasn’t cold, but I kept rubbing my arms like I was. Couldn’t help it. Something was crawling beneath my skin—some tight, buzzing unease I couldn’t shake.
The fields were quiet.
Too quiet.
No distant bleats. No clatter of hooves. Just rows of swaying grass and a sky full of stars that somehow felt farther away than usual.
I found my eyes drifting to the treeline again. Dark shapes, twisted outlines. Nothing moved—but I couldn’t look away. Not for long.
I kept thinking about Hollow.
About the look in his eyes when he said, “You won’t even notice it happening.”
What if this was it? What if this was how it started?
The creeping dread. The quiet paranoia.
The feeling that something just beyond your vision was watching. Waiting.
 
[YOU ARE NOT ALONE. ]
 
I inhaled sharply through my nose and forced the thought away.
Not now.
Not tonight.
We had a job to do.
Even if my skin wouldn’t stop crawling.
 
A breeze rolled in from the east, tugging at the grass with whispering fingers. Somewhere far off, a long, low howl drifted through the night—too drawn out to be natural. Too hollow.
Everyone froze.
Even the fire seemed to hold its breath.
I rose to my feet slowly, eyes scanning the swaying field beyond the camp’s edge. And for just a second—just long enough to question whether I’d imagined it—I saw something moving.
A silhouette. Low to the ground. Four-legged. Lean. But wrong.
Its body moved with an eerie grace, joints bending in places that didn’t feel like they should, gliding silently between stalks of grass that barely shifted in its wake.
Then I blinked.
And it was gone.