CHAPTER TWO

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No one dared to speak.

The verses upon the wall shimmered faintly, fading and then rekindling, as if the stone itself were breathing. Behind the iron gate, the sound of footsteps had ceased, yet they felt a presence watching them. Something... waiting.

Jad was the first to reclaim his voice.

"We are researchers," he said, his voice straining for a confidence that splintered at the end. "We came to study the castle. That is all."

Silence.

Then, the voice returned. It did not come from behind the door this time. It emanated from everywhere—from the stones beneath their feet, from the walls before them, from the very air that lunged into their lungs:

"RESEARCHERS?"

The word reverberated in their ears like an echo in a bottomless well.

"NO ONE COMES TO THIS PLACE TO SEARCH. ALL COME TO FIND... OR TO BE LOST."

Jad looked at his friends. Sima was deathly pale, her face the color of parchment. Maria gripped her camera as if it were a weapon. Elya stared at the door, his lips trembling with whispers they could not comprehend.

"We want nothing," Elya said suddenly, stepping toward the gate. "We... we were reading about the castle. Only reading. Then we came to see. That is all."

"READING?"

The voice cut off. Then, a harsh, jagged laughter erupted again, only to be severed abruptly, as if by a sudden blade.

"THE WRITING YOU READ... IS THE WRITING THAT READS YOU. AND THE CASTLE YOU COME TO SEE... IS THE CASTLE THAT SEES YOU. SINCE YOU WERE IN THE FOREST. SINCE YOU WERE IN YOUR CAMP. SINCE..."

It stopped short.

Then, it spoke in a different tone. Less powerful. More curious:

"WHAT IS THIS?"

Everyone felt a gaze shift toward Sima. Toward her foot.

Sima recoiled, but the wall behind her offered no refuge. The engraving on her skin suddenly flared with light—vibrant this time—as if something were calling out to it.

"WHO WROTE THIS UPON YOU?"

"I don't know!" Sima cried. "The roots... in the forest... something wrapped around my leg and carved it!"

A long silence ensued.

Then the voice spoke, this time in a mere whisper:

"IT IS NOT THE ROOTS THAT WRITE. THE EARTH ITSELF REMEMBERS. AND IT... HAS WRITTEN YOUR NAME."

"My name?" Sima whispered. "But it says: 'Whoever enters the Land of Shadows shall forget their name'... It didn’t write my name!"

"IT HAS NOT WRITTEN IT... YET."

Sima shuddered.

Suddenly, something stirred in the darkness behind the gate. Not footsteps. It was a crawling thing. Something heavy dragging itself across the stone.

The four of them scrambled back.

"Don't open the door!" Maria screamed.

But the door did not open.

The iron began to move. It didn't swing wide; it began to melt. The thick iron bars turned into a black liquid that flowed onto the ground, then rose again like smoke, coalescing into a single point.

It took a shape.

A human silhouette. Tall. Raith-like. Faceless. Only a dark shadow stood before them, its head tilted slightly as if listening to a frequency they could not hear.

The voice now came directly from it. From a shadow with no mouth.

"I AM NOT THE GATEKEEPER. I AM NOT ONE OF THE THREE KINGS. I AM... SOMETHING ELSE. SOMETHING FORGOTTEN HERE LONG AGO. AND YOU... ARE THE FIRST TO COME SINCE I WAS FORGOTTEN."

It drifted a step closer. They heard no footfall. It did not move its legs. It was simply... nearer.

"YOU HAVE A QUESTION. I KNOW YOU HAVE A QUESTION. ALL WHO COME TO THIS GATE BEAR A QUESTION. ASK."

The four looked at one another. Elya was whispering rapidly to himself, then stopped. Maria stared at the shadow, her hands shaking against her camera. Sima clutched at the marking on her foot in terror.

Jad stepped forward.

"Who are you?"

The shadow tilted its head further.

"EASY QUESTION. DIFFICULT ANSWER. I SHALL NOT RESPOND. ASK SOMETHING ELSE."

"Where are we?" Maria asked.

"IN A PLACE THAT KNOWS NO TIME. IN A CASTLE THAT KNOWS NO LIGHT. IN A WORLD..."

It paused. Then, in a lower register:

"IN A WORLD WHERE YOU WERE BEFORE YOU WERE BORN. AND WHERE YOU SHALL BE AFTER YOU DIE. BUT YOU WERE NEVER... ALIVE WITHIN IT."

Silence.

Elya raised his eyes suddenly. There was a weight in his voice that hadn't been there before. Something heavy.

"What does 'The Crossing' mean? In the manuscript... in the final line... it is written: 'They shall be His Crossing.' What does that mean?"

The shadow did not move. It did not answer immediately.

Then it spoke, and this time the words emerged slowly, as if each one bore a crushing weight:

"THE CROSSING... IS THE PASSAGE BETWEEN TWO WORLDS. IT IS THE PATH THE LIVING TREAD TO REACH THE DEAD. AND THAT WHICH THE DEAD TREAD TO REACH... THE BEYOND. AS FOR 'HIS CROSSING'..."

It moved another step forward. Now it was agonizingly close. Close enough that they felt a cold radiating from it—a chill not of this earth.

"IT IS THE PATH ITSELF. WHEN A HUMAN CEASES TO BE A TRAVELER... AND BECOMES THE ROAD. WHEN THINGS PASS THROUGH HIM. WHEN..."

It looked toward Sima. Toward the engraving on her foot.

"WHEN THE WORDS ARE WRITTEN UPON HIM BEFORE HE KNOWS THEIR MEANING."

Sima trembled. She felt, suddenly, that the marking on her foot was not merely letters. It was a living thing. Something that was reading her. Not the other way around.

"We want to leave," Jad said abruptly. "We want to go back. To where we came from."

The shadow remained motionless.

"YOU DO NOT GO BACK."

"What?"

"THE FOREST WAS NOT A PATH. IT WAS... A VIAL. A VIAL THAT SEALS FROM THE INSIDE. YOU ENTERED IT. YOU SEALED IT. AND NOW..."

It extended a hand. It wasn't a hand; it was a shadow stretching toward them.

"NOW YOU ARE IN THE CASTLE. AND THE CASTLE RELEASES NO ONE. NOT UNLESS..."

"Unless what?" Elya asked quickly.

The shadow recoiled. It retreated into the door, into the black liquid it had been, into the darkness from whence it came.

"UNLESS YOU BECOME... SOMETHING OTHER THAN YOURSELVES."

And it began to dissolve. To disintegrate. It returned to iron bars that re-formed, locking the door, rebuilding themselves.

Before it vanished completely, they heard its final words echoing in the air:

"ENTER. THE DOOR WAITS. AND WHAT LIES BEYOND THE DOOR... WAITS EVEN MORE."

Then, all fell silent.

No more sound. No footsteps, no whispers, no pulse of stone.

The door was as sealed as it had always been. The verses on the wall had ceased their shimmering. Everything returned to its stony silence.

But something had changed.

The symbols on the forest trunks they held in their hands... had vanished. The engraving on Sima’s foot... no longer glowed, but it was deeper than it had been before. And most importantly...

When Jad looked at the sky, he saw that the sun had not moved. It was in the exact same spot it had been since they woke.

Time here... does not pass.

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End of Chapter Two | Part One

This work is purely fictional. Any resemblance to real names or other stories is purely coincidental.

No part of this story may be copied or republished without the author's permission

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