Time seemed to stall in the town of Greymoor Ridge.
Fog clung to the gutters like a secret. The mountains pressed in like old memories, and the woods just beyond the last row of houses whispered in a language only the wind could understand. Even the clock tower in the square ticked a second slower than it should, as if reluctant to move forward.
Seventeen-year-old Marin Vale didn't blame it.
She stood outside Trinkets & Tomes, the only secondhand store in town that still smelled like dust and lavender, staring at a CLOSED sign that hadn't flipped all week. Her breath clouded in front of her, the cold already threading under her sleeves, but she didn't move.
Something had pulled her here.
Again.
She told herself it was stupid—just an old dream playing tricks. But that wasn't quite true. Last night, like all the nights before, she'd dreamed of the golden forest again: trees made of soft light, pages falling like leaves, and a voice whispering her name like it was trying not to wake her. It was beautiful. It was terrifying.
It was hers.
And today, Trinkets & Tomes had finally opened.
The bell above the door gave a soft jingle as she stepped inside, her boots clicking against worn wooden floors. The air smelled like forgotten letters and rain on old stone. Rows of crooked bookshelves leaned like gossiping villagers. No one was at the front counter.
"Hello?" she called out.
No answer. But something tugged at her.
Not quite a sound. Not quite a thought. More like a pulse in her bones, leading her deeper, past stacked globes and glass bottles filled with flickering ink.
That's when she saw it—tucked between two encyclopedias no one would ever read.
A storybook.
Old, bound in cracked blue leather, with silver vines curling up its spine like they were alive. No title. No author. Just a shimmering clasp shaped like a crescent moon.
She reached for it. Her fingertips tingled.
The moment her hand touched the cover, the shop shifted—just slightly, like the air had inhaled. Lights flickered. A clock somewhere skipped a beat. Outside, the fog pressed harder against the windows, as if trying to watch.
Marin opened the clasp.
But the book refused to open.
She frowned, tugging again, harder this time.
Nothing.
It wasn't locked. It was sealed. Like something inside didn't want to be read.
"Strange choice," came a voice from behind her.
Marin spun around, clutching the book to her chest. A man stood there. Wiry frame, ink-stained fingertips, and eyes like wells that hadn't seen daylight in years.
Mr. Athridge, the owner.
He smiled faintly, like someone who had seen too many ghosts to be startled by one more. "That one's been here longer than the shelves. Nobody ever buys it. Are you sure that's what you want?"
Marin didn't answer. She didn't need to.
The book was cold, pulsing gently against her hands like a heartbeat.
Something inside it was waiting.
Maybe it always had been.
She paid in silence—though Mr. Athridge didn't ask for much. A few coins, a nod, and a single word:
"Don't try to open it at night."
Marin blinked, the doorbell chiming behind her as she stepped back into the cold. She wanted to ask what he meant, but something in his voice said he wouldn't answer anyway.
She walked home through the fog, the book warm now against her arms, like it had been waiting to be chosen.
Like it had chosen her.
Her room was a patchwork of oddities—dried flowers hanging upside down from the ceiling, broken clocks that still ticked, and a windowsill where she left crumbs for birds that never came. The walls were a soft gray-blue, and the wallpaper peeled in places like tired skin.
She set the book down on her desk and stared at it.
No clasp now. No lock. Just the strange, blank cover and the subtle shimmer beneath the leather that moved when she wasn't looking.
She waited until nightfall.
Then she tried again.
This time, the book opened.
But there were no words.
Only a single page, and on it, three lines—scrawled in delicate, glimmering ink that didn't look written so much as breathed into the paper.
"When the heart remembers, the door will open.
When the soul trembles, the path will appear.
When the ink runs red, the end begins."
She touched the words.
And the room shattered.
No.
Not shattered.
Shifted.
The bed behind her disappeared. The lamp flickered and went out. Her desk dissolved into mist, and suddenly she was standing barefoot in a place that smelled like wet parchment and moonlight.
The trees were made of paper.
Their trunks peeled softly in the wind, leaves whispering as they turned themselves. Every branch bled ink. The sky was a faded gradient, bruised lavender and peach, and high above, a quill-shaped star burned through the dark.
She was dreaming.
Wasn't she?
A figure stood ahead.
Tall. Sharp. Robed in something blacker than black, like he had been drawn in with angry lines. He didn't move, didn't speak—just watched her from beneath a mask of silver, shaped like a face that had forgotten how to smile.
Then his voice came—not through her ears, but straight into the marrow of her bones.
"You've opened it," the Inkfather said.
"And now you can never unread what waits."
Behind him, the trees began to curl inward, folding and crumpling like burned paper. In the distance, something massive stirred—a shape made of shadows and teeth. Marin's heartbeat quickened. She tried to back away.
But her feet were already sinking into the ink.
She woke up gasping, fingers clutching the blankets, the book still open in her lap.
But the words were gone.
The page was blank again—except for a smudge of red where her thumb had rested.
Blood.