Chapter 1: The Echo Below

Kael never knew what silence truly was until he heard the whispers. They weren’t words at first, just soft echoes at the edge of his perception—like a song sung in a language forgotten by time. As a child, he thought they were nothing more than his imagination playing tricks in the dark. But as he grew, so did the whispers, and so did the feeling that something watched him from just beyond his reach.

It started on a night when the wind howled like a wounded beast. The small village of Oredale lay nestled between jagged cliffs and dark forests, an unforgiving place where nightfall always arrived with a shiver of dread. That evening, Kael had been sent to fetch water from the well, the handle of his lantern swaying softly in his grip. He pulled his cloak tighter against the cold, his breath curling like smoke into the air.

“Don’t be out too late,” his mother had warned him earlier. Her voice was flat, masking the subtle unease that everyone in Oredale carried after dark. Even she no longer looked him in the eyes for long—there was something about Kael, they said, something wrong.

He approached the well and set the lantern down. Its dim light barely cut through the shadows, making the darkness feel alive. With each turn of the crank, the bucket scraped against the stone, its hollow echo carrying down into what seemed like an endless black void.

Then the whispers started.

Kael froze.

At first, he thought it was the wind whistling through the trees, but the sound was closer, sharper. It didn’t flow or fade with the breeze—it stayed, reverberating deep inside his ears like a voice that wasn’t there. Slowly, he turned to scan the area, his chest tightening as his lantern sputtered against the growing chill.

“Is someone there?” he called out. His voice broke against the quiet.

Nothing answered.

He grabbed the bucket and yanked it up faster, its weight pulling against his trembling arms. As he lifted it onto the stone lip of the well, he glanced down into the water below. The lantern’s glow reflected dimly off the rippling surface, and for a brief moment, it looked like a second lantern was shining back at him.

Then something moved.

A shadow, darker than any he’d ever seen, seemed to spread through the water like ink. Eyes—golden and burning—flared open in the depths, staring back at him with terrifying clarity. Kael stumbled backward, knocking the lantern to the ground where it shattered. Flames sputtered briefly before the light died, plunging the world into pure blackness.

“Kael.”

The voice came from the well. It was deep and smooth, curling around his name like a serpent. He scrambled back, his hands digging into the frozen earth as he watched a shape rise from the depths of the stone circle. It was massive—tendrils of darkness unfurling and reaching into the air. They moved like living shadows, the golden eyes at their center unblinking.

“Kael... I see you.”

His heart hammered in his chest, every instinct screaming at him to run, but his legs refused to move. He could only watch as the shadows coiled and twisted toward him, the golden eyes now multiplied, each one locked on his trembling form.

“No...” he choked out, his breath ragged. “What are you? Stay away!”

The shadows paused as though amused. The golden eyes blinked in unison, their glow somehow growing brighter against the surrounding blackness. “Not yet.”

Then, as quickly as they had appeared, the shadows withdrew. They sank back into the well, leaving only stillness and silence behind. Kael sat there, frozen, the faint echo of his name still ringing in his ears. He didn’t dare move until the first light of dawn touched the edges of the sky.

When he finally stumbled back home, his face pale and his hands bloodied from the fall, his mother took one look at him and crossed herself. “The whispers,” she muttered under her breath, backing away as though he carried some plague.

Kael said nothing. He couldn’t explain what he’d seen. He couldn’t even begin to understand it. But that night, as he lay awake in bed, staring at the ceiling, the whispers returned—clearer this time.

And somewhere deep inside him, Kael knew one thing: the shadows had not forgotten him.

They had chosen him.

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