When Arthur opened his eyes, he couldn’t quite tell where he was at that moment. A deep darkness surrounded him, thick and endless, pressing in from all sides. For a brief moment, he thought it was just because he had fallen asleep. Maybe the fire had gone out, maybe the shack had grown colder, darker, and this was just him waking in the dead of night.

  Wasting no time, he rubbed his eyes, blinking against the black, fully expecting it to vanish. When his hands moved away from his face, however, he saw it was not the case. The darkness had remained. It took him a moment to truly realize where he was.

  Somehow, someway, he had been dragged back here. The realization settled over him like ice. He couldn’t tell how it had happened, couldn’t feel anything that might’ve triggered it. All he could remember was curling up inside his jacket, body aching, the firelight flickering faintly through the cracks in the shack. He had shut his eyes, hoping for rest, nothing more.

  As panic began to well up inside of him, something else did too. At first, he couldn’t name it. It was buried beneath the confusion, beneath the fear tightening his chest. But slowly, it pushed its way to the surface. Curiosity.

  It took him a moment to recognize it for what it was. Unlike the last time he had been here, he wasn’t being dragged. There were no chains, no unbearable force hauling him downward like some soul caught on a hook. Instead, he floated—weightless, adrift in the silence. The sensation was almost gentle, like being suspended in deep water.

  Time passed. Or maybe it didn’t. He had no way of knowing. All he could feel was the slow return of awareness, a gentle shift beneath his feet, like gravity had remembered him. Without warning, the sensation changed. He was no longer drifting—he was standing. Beneath him was something solid, though he couldn’t say what. It wasn’t stone or earth, just a surface that existed because he needed one. He looked down but saw only black. Everything around him was darkness, so complete it seemed to swallow thought itself.

  With no clear reason as to why, he began to walk. Step after step, his movements made the sound of splashing water, yet he couldn't see or feel any. There was no destination, only the sense that he was meant to go forward. The silence around him was now beginning to fade, and he could hear the sounds of water.

  At first, it was distant, soft trickling, like a stream winding through hollow stone. Then it deepened. He heard the lap of waves, the low groan of deep currents, and something else beneath it all. A rhythm. Slow. Measured. Like breathing. He paused, the sound growing clearer with each passing second. Whatever lay ahead, it was alive.

  The darkness began to change the more he walked. It had begun to grow thinner and thinner, losing its opaquness and becoming easier to see. Ahead of him, a shape started to take form—first as a pale glow, then as a curve, rising slowly from the void. It took him a moment to realize it was a moon, suspended impossibly low on the horizon. Its light bled into the darkness around it, revealing a pool beneath it, flat and perfectly still.

  Almost as if he were being compelled to do so, Arthur found himself kneeling in front of the pool. He didn’t remember deciding to kneel, didn’t recall the motion of lowering himself, but there he was—knees resting on the unseen ground, his reflection staring back at him from the moonlit surface. He was confused but remain silent as to water began to move and something began to rise from it.

  At first, it was only a shape beneath the surface, a blur of dark and pale lines shifting as though caught in a slow current. Then it broke the surface with unnatural grace, sending no splash or ripple—only smooth displacement, like the water welcomed its return.

  A figure emerged, tall and cloaked in something that looked like hair, or smoke, or liquid shadow. It flowed off her body like silk drifting underwater, never settling, never still. Her face was obscured, hidden beneath long strands that swayed gently despite the absence of any breeze. Atop her head, a smaller moon hovered, mirroring the one that sat in the water in front of her, casting a faint halo around her silhouette.

  The figure stood at the edge of the pool, half-submerged, silent, watching Arthur as he kept his eyes glued to the ground. Every nerve inside his body screamed at him not to look up at the being in front of him, and by God, he was going to listen. He didn’t need to see her face to know what kind of presence stood before him. It pressed against his mind like the weight of the ocean, vast and far beyond his understanding.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  His breathing slowed without his permission, as though even that small defiance might draw attention. He could feel the moonlight on his skin and it sent chills down his spine. It was cold and heavy, like a weighted cloth draped across his shoulders, pressing in on him in a way that made the air feel thicker, more difficult to draw into his lungs.

  As he kept his eyes glued to the ground, he could hear the sound of the water moving as she got closer to him. The sound was steady, hypnotic in a way that only made the pressure building in his chest worse. His breathing quickened despite his efforts to stay calm. Each breath came faster, more shallow, his throat tightening as the weight of her presence bore down on him.

  His hands trembled where they rested on his knees. His vision blurred, not from tears but from the way his heart pounded against his ribs, fast and uneven. It was too much. The silence, the cold, the feeling of being cracked open and studied. Panic was rising fast, clawing its way up his spine, threatening to take control of everything.

  Then he felt her hand touch his face. It was impossibly cold, colder than ice and anything else Arthur had ever imagined. His breath hitched. For a moment, he thought he might black out. His vision swam, his heart stuttered, and all sense of time slipped away. Yet despite the overwhelming chill, the touch was gentle. Her fingers brushed along the edge of his jaw before slipping beneath his chin.

  Slowly, with that same eerie grace, she tilted his head upward. Arthur's muscles resisted at first, every instinct urging him to keep his gaze down, to avoid whatever waited above. But her hand was steady, impossibly steady, and his body betrayed him in the face of that subtle, inescapable pull. His neck strained as his chin lifted, breath caught tight in his throat.

  She stood over him, towering and still, cloaked in shifting veils of black that moved like smoke caught underwater. Her face remained mostly hidden, but now, up close, he could make out just enough to send a fresh jolt of fear down his spine. There were no eyes in the usual sense—just faint glimmers of pale light behind the veil, like distant stars seen through deep fog. Her features shifted subtly, never quite settling, as if reality itself couldn't agree on what she truly looked like.

  The moon above her cast its glow across her form, outlining her in silver light. The smaller moon that hovered above her head pulsed faintly, echoing something deep within Arthur’s chest. She looked at him—not just at his face, but through him. Past skin and bone, past thought and memory. The weight of her gaze was unbearable, but he couldn’t look away. Something ancient and wordless passed between them, a feeling that reached into him and pulled. Then, without speaking, she reached toward his chest.

  Her hand didn’t stop. It drifted the final inch, fingers brushing against his chest with the barest contact—so light he might have doubted it happened at all, if not for what followed. The second her skin touched his, the world around him changed.

  The void went silent. Not quite—silent. As if even thought had been pushed out, leaving only space for what was happening.

  Cold surged through him, not from her hand, but from within his chest, radiating outward in slow, steady waves. His back arched slightly as the pressure built, as if someone had poured liquid iron into him. The light beneath his sternum ignited, not flickering like a flame, but blooming like a flower.

  He gasped, but not from pain. No, it was from something more. The sensation wrapped itself around his very core, winding through his nerves, threading into his thoughts. He felt it press into his memory, carving itself into the foundation of who he was, as if it had always been there, waiting to be revealed.

  The glow gradually faded, the light dimming beneath his skin until it disappeared completely after a few moments. But he still felt it—steady and present, pulsing faintly beneath the surface like a second heartbeat.

  Her hand withdrew, slow and fluid, and with it, the crushing weight of her presence began to ease. Not vanish—but settle, like a tide pulling back from the shore. The pressure in his chest lessened, his lungs expanding again as if he’d been held underwater and was finally allowed to breathe.

  Arthur lowered his head, eyes dropping once more to the unseen ground. He didn’t feel like he’d earned the right to keep looking at her. Even after what had just passed between them, some part of him still refused to believe he was meant to be in her presence at all.

  The sound didn’t come from her mouth. Instead, it echoed around him, as if the darkness itself had learned to speak. It wasn’t a single voice, but many layered together—some high, others low, male and female, and something else entirely. The voices blended seamlessly, yet didn't at the same time.

  “When you wake, you will feel the call,” the voices said. “And when the dead speak… listen.”

  As the final words echoed into silence, the figure began to retreat. Without a sound, she drifted back across the surface of the pool, returning to the place where she had first emerged. The shadows curled around her like a cloak, and the moonlight above her dimmed slightly, as if bowing to her presence.

  Arthur remained still, his head lowered, heart pounding in his chest. He felt the pressure change again—subtle at first, then undeniable. The ground beneath him trembled, not violently, but steadily, like something old and massive stirring below. A low hum spread through the air, vibrating faintly through his knees and chest.

  Without warning, the floor beneath him gave way. There was no sound of breaking or giving way. One moment he was kneeling on solid ground, and the next, it dissolved beneath him. He didn’t fall so much as he was pulled downward, as if gravity itself had reversed, dragging him back into the void. His arms flailed out of instinct, searching for something to hold onto, but there was nothing. Only the dark.

  As he sank, he looked up one last time. The figure still stood at the edge of the pool, her form wrapped in veils of shadow and starlight. She hadn’t moved. She simply watched, unmoving, unshaken. And for the briefest moment, the veil over her face parted just enough to see her eyes.

  It was like staring into infinity.