Chapter 3 - The Journal

Sleep did not come easily that night. Elara lay in bed, the fog pressing against her window like a living thing, the silence broken only by the ticking of the clock. The notebook sat on her desk across the room, but she could feel it watching her, whispering at the edge of her thoughts.

Finally, she gave up. She switched on her lamp and dragged the book into her lap.

Most of the pages were Mara's usual scribbles - half poems, fragments of songs, messy doodles. But beneath them, faint scratches were surfacing, as though ink had bled up through the paper overnight. Elara squinted, her heart pounding as the words took shape:

"Why are you searching for me?"

Her breath caught. She touched the letters, but the ink didn't smear. Her hands trembled.

Flipping another page, more words appeared, curling across the paper in the same crimson shade she had seen the night before.

"You're not ready, Elara."

She slammed the book shut, her pulse hammering. It wasn't possible. Mara couldn't be writing this - not from wherever she was. Not in this way. Unless it wasn't Mara at all.

"Elara?"

Her mother's voice startled her. She stuffed the notebook under her blanket as the door cracked open. Her mother's face was pale in the lamplight, her eyes lined with exhaustion.

"You're awake," her mother said softly. "I thought I heard voices."

"Just? reading," Elara mumbled.

Her mother hesitated, then stepped inside. "You need to be careful. There are things in this town? things I should have told you sooner."

Elara looked up sharply. "What things?"

Her mother's lips pressed tight, as if sealing in words she didn't dare let out. After a long silence, she finally said, "Your grandmother believed our family was cursed. That we were tied to the shadows in Blackwood. She called it? the blood debt."

Elara's skin prickled. "What does that mean?"

But her mother only shook her head and brushed a strand of hair from Elara's face. "Forget I said anything. Just promise me you'll stay away from the old church."

The church. Always the church.

Her mother kissed her forehead and left, leaving Elara with more questions than answers.

By midnight, she couldn't resist anymore. She slipped the notebook into her jacket and crept out of the house. The fog was thicker than ever, swallowing the streetlamps whole.

Her footsteps echoed as she moved, every shadow seeming to stretch toward her. The church loomed ahead, its bell tower jagged against the moonlight. She swore she heard whispers drifting through the mist - soft, feminine, achingly familiar.

Mara.

Her name slipped through Elara's lips before she realized it.

She crossed the rusted gate and climbed the stone steps. The bloodstains were still there, darker now, seeping into the cracks. She hesitated at the doorway, heart racing.

The whispers grew clearer. Elara? come closer?

Her hands shook as she opened the notebook again. The pages fluttered wildly, as though caught in an invisible wind, before stopping on a single line that hadn't been there before:

"I'm waiting below."

The words pulsed like a heartbeat across the page.

Elara's throat tightened. Below. The crypt.

She stepped inside the church. The air was damp and sour, the scent of stone and rot. Moonlight slanted through the broken windows, casting long shadows that seemed to move on their own. Her boots echoed across the cracked floor as she made her way toward the altar.

And then she heard it - footsteps. Not her own.

They were slow, deliberate, coming from the far corner of the church. She froze, every muscle tense. The shadows rippled, and a figure stepped forward.

For a heartbeat, she thought it was Adrian. The height, the dark coat - it was the same. But then the figure tilted its head, and she saw the glint of teeth, sharp and white.

Her pulse thundered.

"Elara," the voice rasped. Not Mara's voice. Something older. Hungrier.

The figure moved closer, each step echoing like a drumbeat.

And then, from behind her, another voice whispered - this time, unmistakably Mara's.

"Elara. Don't look at him."

Elara spun, but the church was empty. Only fog curling through broken windows.

When she turned back, the figure was gone.

But the notebook in her hands was no longer blank. On the page, scrawled in crimson, were the words:

"Choose quickly. Him, or me."

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