We drove to the outskirts of town, following the directions given to
The further we went, the more the landscape changed. The trees grew taller, their trunks thicker, their branches tangled like skeletal fingers reaching toward the sky.
And the sounds—
Or rather, the lack of them.
At first, I barely noticed. The car’s engine still hummed, the tires sti crunched against the dirt road. But as Alex pulled to a stop near an old, weathered sign, I finally realized what was missing.
The world had gone silent.
No birds.
No wind.
Nothing.
Isaiah exhaled. “This is it.”
We stepped out of the car.
The forest loomed ahead of us, a black mass of twisting branches.
Austin let out a nervous laugh. “Great. A creepy, haunted forest. Exactly what I wanted.”
Isaiah smirked. “Scared?”
Austin scoffed. “No. Just… cautious.”
Alex rolled his eyes. “Let’s go.”
We stepped into the forest.
And immediately, the silence wrapped around us like a vi
It was like stepping into another world.
Every step felt too loud. The snapping of twigs beneath our boots effoed, filling the space where the sounds of nature should have been.
I swallowed hard, trying to steady my
If there was magic here, we needed to move carefully.
The air was dense, thick with the scent of damp earth and decaying wood. My wolf stirred inside me, restless and alert. Something wasn’t right.
I turned to the others.
Elijah stood beside me, his shoulders tense. Isaiah surveyed the are eyes narrowed as if he could see something the rest of us couldn’t. Austin stretched, pretending to be casual, but the way his fingers twitched at his sides gave away his nerves. Alex, of
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course, rolled his shoulders and smirked.
“Well,” he
said, stuffing his hands into his pockets, “it doesn’t look that creepy.”
Austin scoffed. “Yeah? Try listening to the fact that there’s no sound”
He was right. The eerie silence stretched around us, pressing against my skin like an invisible weight.
The whispering willows loomed ahead, twisted and dry, their once–flowing branches frozen in time. Many had been cut down, their fallen trunks rotting into the earth. A graveyard of trees.
Our boots crunched softly against the dirt. As
moved deeper into the grove, I felt it. A pull. It was faint but unmistakable.
Something deep within me recognized this place. The sensation was like a tug inside my chest, a string of energy connecting me to the land.
I faltered for a moment, my fingers brushing against one of the tree trunks.
It was cold–colder than it should have been.
Stormi…
My wolf’s voice echoed in my mind, urgent yet curious. She felt it too.
“Something wrong?” Elijah’s voice
quiet but watchful.
I shook my head, though I knew we both felt the same unease.
Austin exhaled loudly, breaking the tension. “Well, the old man was right. This place is dead.”
He kicked at a fallen branch, watching it crumble into dust. “Nothing magical here.”
Alex grinned. “Damn. I was hoping for floating ghosts or tree spirits. What a letdown.”
Elijah suddenly crouched down, studying something on the ground. His brows furrowed in concentration.
Alex leaned over him, flicking his fingers. A small flame appeared at his fingertips, casting an orange glow onto the dirt.
“What is it?” I asked, stepping closer.
Elijah traced a finger over the earth. “A boundary line.”
I inhaled sharply as the firelight revealed a pattern–a circle etched into the ground, surrounding the entire grove.
Isaiah’s voice was grim. “The trees weren’t just cut down. They were silenced.”
The weight of his words pressed down on all of us.
I knelt beside Elijah, my fingers brushing over the edge of the boundary. It was faint but alive. I could feel the magic humming beneath my skin.
“This isn’t just any spell,” Elijah muttered. “It’s ancient.”
swallowed hard. I didn’t know how I knew, but… I needed to cross
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Through the sea of whispers, one stood out.
It wasn’t chaotic–it was deliberate.
A single tree, different from the rest, whispering the same words over and over again.
Seek the shadow where time has dwelled.
A chill crawled down my spine.
Isaiah’s voice was tight. “It’s a clue.”
I turned to the tree, my heart pounding. The bark was old, and cracked with time. But as I stepped closer, I saw it-
An inscription.
The words were carved deep into the wood, aged but still visible.
“Seek the shadow where time has dwelled.”
Just below it, something else.
A small, hollow opening in the trunk.
My breath caught..
“There’s something inside,” I whispered.
Elijah moved beside me. “Stormi, be careful.”
Ignoring the warning, I reached forward.
As soon as my fingers entered the hollow, the tree bark scraped against my skin.
I bit back a hiss and I gritted my teeth and grabbed hold of whatever was inside.
The object was wrapped in cloth, rough and brittle with age.
Slowly, I pulled it free.
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