Chapter 71
The Awakening
The air inside the ruins turned ice-cold. The figure that had emerged from the shadows was unlike anything Elena had ever seen—tall and shifting, its body flickering between solid and transparent, as though it didn’t fully belong to this world.
The whispers rose in intensity, curling around them like unseen tendrils.
Mateo took an instinctive step back. “Tell me someone else is seeing this.”
Naomi swallowed hard. “Oh, we all see it.”
Elena clenched her fists, forcing herself to stand her ground. “What… is that?”
The old man’s warning echoed in her mind: “If you hear whispers, don’t stop. Don’t look back.”
They had broken the first rule.
The entity moved, its elongated limbs stretching unnaturally, its face—a shifting mass of darkness—tilting toward them as if observing.
Richard slowly reached for his gun. “Maybe it’s not hostile.”
As if in response, the thing lunged.
A Fight in the Dark
A force like a hurricane blasted through the ruins, sending them all flying backward. Elena hit the ground hard, pain jolting through her ribs. She barely had time to react before Richard fired a shot.
The bullet passed right through the creature, embedding itself into the stone behind it.
“It’s not solid!” Naomi shouted.
“Then how do we fight it?” Mateo yelled, scrambling to his feet.
The creature moved with terrifying speed, its form distorting like a living shadow. It lashed out, its presence pressing down on them like a weight, suffocating and unbearable.
Elena’s mind raced. If it can’t be touched, then it can’t be hurt. But that means…
“We’re not supposed to fight it,” she realized. “We’re supposed to escape!”
The others barely heard her over the howling wind. The ruins trembled around them, the very ground beneath their feet shifting unnaturally.
Richard fired again, to no effect. “Great plan! How do we escape?”
“The name!” Amira gasped. “The name is the only way to stop it!”
The Desperate Search
They scattered, searching the ruins for anything—any sign of the ancient name that could bind the creature.
Elena’s hands trembled as she flipped through the brittle pages of the old book, desperate for an answer.
Then, she saw it.
A passage, scrawled at the bottom of a page, nearly illegible from age:
“Call it by the name it once bore, and it shall be bound by the chains of truth.”
But the name itself was missing. Torn away by time.
“No, no, no!” she muttered, frantically scanning the walls of the ruins. Symbols covered the stone—ancient carvings, some nearly erased by the passage of centuries.
Amira ran her fingers over the engravings. “It has to be here somewhere!”
The creature let out a terrible sound, something between a shriek and a roar. The shadows around them deepened, swirling like a vortex, pulling them toward it.
Mateo grabbed Elena’s arm. “We’re running out of time!”
Then, Naomi shouted, pointing at a half-broken stone slab. “There! That symbol—it matches the book!”
Elena ran toward it, heart pounding. The engraving was old, barely visible, but it was there. A name.
She tried to say it aloud, but the moment she opened her mouth, the shadows rushed forward, pressing against her throat, choking the words before they could form.
The creature knew. And it would do everything to keep its name a secret.
A Race Against Darkness
Elena gasped for air, her vision blurring. The weight of the darkness crushed against her chest.
Richard grabbed her shoulders, shaking her. “Say it!”
She forced the word past her lips, the sound almost lost in the chaos around them.
The effect was instant.
The creature froze, its shifting form faltering. The shadows recoiled, retreating as if burned.
Elena took a deep breath and shouted the name again, louder this time.
The ruins shook violently.
A deafening wail filled the air as the creature convulsed, its body breaking apart, dissolving into fragments of darkness. The vortex collapsed inward, sucking the shadows into the very ground.
Then—silence.
The air returned to normal. The whispers were gone. The ruins stood still once more.
They had done it.
The Aftermath
Elena fell to her knees, exhausted. The others stood in stunned silence, the weight of what had just happened sinking in.
Mateo let out a shaky laugh. “So… we just survived that?”
Naomi exhaled sharply, brushing dust from her clothes. “Barely.”
Richard looked around, his grip still tight on his gun. “I don’t think it’s over.”
Amira frowned. “What do you mean? It’s gone.”
Elena wiped sweat from her forehead. “It’s not destroyed. Just bound.”
They had spoken its name and forced it back into the shadows… but for how long?
The old man had warned them.
Some things never truly die.
