Chapter 69
The Man Who Knew Too Much
The road stretched endlessly before them, swallowed by the vast emptiness of the forest. The headlights of the car barely pierced the thick fog that clung to the trees like a living thing. Every turn felt like a descent into something darker, something unknown.
Elena kept her eyes fixed on the road ahead, gripping the steering wheel tighter than she needed to. The silence in the car was heavy, weighed down by the unspoken tension lingering between them.
Naomi shifted in her seat, her fingers tapping anxiously against her thigh. “So, we’re just going to some old guy’s house in the middle of nowhere, hoping he has the answers we need?”
Richard exhaled sharply. “Got a better plan?”
Naomi rolled her eyes but didn’t answer.
Jordan’s voice crackled through the radio. “You should be getting close. Keep an eye out for a mailbox with an old crow carved into it. That’s his place.”
Elena scanned the darkened roadside. The deeper they drove into the woods, the more unnatural everything felt. The trees leaned in too closely, their gnarled branches twisting in ways that made her stomach churn.
Then she saw it.
A rusted mailbox, barely standing, with a weathered carving of a crow perched on top.
“This is it,” she murmured.
She pulled onto the dirt path leading up to a small, crooked cabin. The place looked abandoned—windows boarded up, a lantern swinging from a hook by the door, casting eerie shadows across the walls.
Mateo frowned. “Are we sure this guy’s still alive?”
Amira opened the car door. “Only one way to find out.”
An Unwelcome Arrival
The wooden steps creaked under their weight as they approached the door. Elena raised a fist and knocked.
Silence.
She knocked again. “Hello?”
No answer.
Richard glanced at the others before stepping forward and pounding on the door harder. “Hey! We need to talk!”
A rustling sound came from inside, followed by slow, shuffling footsteps. The door creaked open an inch, revealing a single wary eye staring at them through the gap.
“What do you want?” The voice was hoarse, as if it hadn’t been used in years.
Elena hesitated. “Are you—”
“I know who I am,” the old man interrupted. “The real question is, do you?”
The group exchanged uneasy glances.
Naomi sighed. “Listen, we don’t have time for riddles. We need answers. You’ve dealt with this thing before, haven’t you?”
The old man didn’t move. “What thing?”
“The shadows,” Richard said. “The thing that’s been hunting us.”
The man’s fingers tightened on the doorframe. His eye darkened with something unreadable.
“You should leave,” he muttered.
Mateo scoffed. “We just got here.”
“And if you’re smart, you’ll turn around and go back the way you came.”
“We can’t do that,” Elena said firmly. “It’s not gone. We stopped it—for now—but we need to know how to finish it for good.”
The old man studied them for a long moment. Then, without a word, he stepped back and pulled the door open wider.
“Come in,” he muttered. “But you won’t like what you hear.”
The Truth in Shadows
The inside of the cabin was just as eerie as the outside. Dimly lit, cluttered with books and strange objects. The air smelled of old paper and something faintly metallic.
The man motioned for them to sit, then lowered himself into a worn-out chair.
“I knew this day would come,” he said, rubbing a hand over his weathered face. “The thing you’re facing—it’s older than any of us. And it doesn’t die the way you think.”
Elena leaned forward. “What do you mean?”
The man sighed. “It doesn’t have a body like you and me. It’s not alive in the way you understand. You can break it apart, slow it down, but you can’t destroy it—not unless you know its true name.”
Mateo frowned. “True name?”
The old man nodded. “Everything that exists has a name. A name is power. Find its real name, and you can bind it. Trap it.”
Naomi scoffed. “And where exactly do we find that?”
The man’s expression darkened. “That’s the part you won’t like.”
He reached into a tattered box beside him, pulling out an old, crumbling book. He flipped through the brittle pages before stopping on one, his finger hovering over a faded symbol.
“This is where it began.”
Elena’s stomach twisted as she read the text. The words were written in a language she didn’t recognize, but the meaning was clear.
The shadow had a name.
And it had been buried deep in a place no one had dared to go for centuries.
“The ruins,” the old man muttered. “That’s where you’ll find it.”
A heavy silence settled over them.
Richard finally spoke. “So, what you’re saying is, if we go to this place, find its name, we can stop it for good?”
The old man’s gaze was unreadable. “If you make it back alive.”
Elena’s heart pounded. There was no turning back now.
Whatever lay ahead, they had to face it.
Because if they didn’t, the shadows would never stop hunting them.
