Marin couldn't sleep.
The blood had dried to a thin copper crescent on the page, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't erase it. She stared at the mark until the sun peeled weakly through the curtains, and even then, she didn't move.
The dream had felt real. More real than anything since her father died. More real than the dusty world outside, the too-quiet town, the way everything seemed to fade at the edges lately.
She ran her thumb over the page again. It was smooth—too smooth, like the paper was made of something alive. And now, underneath her dried blood, the ink shimmered again.
Not words this time.
A map.
It appeared slowly, like breath fogging a mirror: roads twisting like veins, coastlines drawn in meticulous detail, all coiling inward to a blank circle at the center.
She touched the circle.
Nothing happened.
But when she looked up from the book, the mirror across the room was gone.
No. Not gone.
Different.
Instead of reflecting her room, it showed a cracked stone corridor—a hallway lined with broken quills, their ink dried in long black smears across the walls. Something moved just out of frame, dragging long fingers across the stone.
Marin dropped the book.
The mirror returned to normal.
The corridor was gone.
Later, at breakfast, her mother asked why she looked so pale. Marin just said she didn't sleep well. Her mother gave her that tired smile again—the kind you offer someone when you both know something's broken but neither of you wants to admit it.
She didn't bring the book to school. But she felt it anyway.
Every shadow seemed a little darker.
Every whisper in the hallway a little too sharp.
At lunch, her classmate Wyatt—usually too shy to say much—sat down across from her and said, "You look like you saw a ghost."
She tried to laugh it off.
But Wyatt leaned closer, voice low. "I had a weird dream last night," he said. "There was this forest. Made of paper. And someone was watching me from the trees."
Marin's fork slipped from her hand.
"Did… he speak to you?" she whispered.
Wyatt shook his head slowly. "No. But he pointed at something. A book, I think. I didn't recognize it. But… when I woke up, my pillow had ink on it."
Marin stared at him, heart in her throat.
She didn't say anything.
Didn't dare.
That night, she opened the book again.
The map was still there. But now the blank center pulsed faintly, and underneath it, new words had formed.
A second line:
"When the soul trembles, the path will appear."
And as she read it, the room around her grew still. The air folded in on itself. Her reflection in the mirror smiled—but she hadn't.
And the voice came again, this time like a whisper written inside her ribs:
"The path is opening.
But not all who walk it will return."
The morning sun struggled to break through thick clouds as Marin trudged to school, the heavy weight of secrets anchoring her every step. The strange ink on her pillow, the murmurs in dreams, and the book's mysterious map haunted her thoughts. Even as familiar faces passed her by in the hallways, a part of her remained in that surreal corridor of crumpled paper and whispered promises.
In class, her mind wasn't on algebra or history. Instead, she replayed Wyatt's words from lunch, his trembling confession of a paper forest and ink-stained dreams. That shared nightmare spun tendrils of uncertainty through her heart. Was it truly a shared vision? Or had Everlost begun to break into the waking world?
When the final bell rang, instead of heading home straight away, Marin found herself lingering near the old oak tree behind the school—a quiet sanctuary away from prying eyes. There, Wyatt waited, his eyes as wary and searching as hers.
"Marin," he whispered as soon as she sat beside him, the autumn chill sharpening his words. "Something's happening. I can't shake it off." His voice trembled between dread and unspoken hope.
She nodded, clutching the worn storybook tightly against her chest. "I've seen it too. Last night, when I opened the book…" Her voice trailed off as if afraid to complete the sentence, the vivid images of swirling paper trees and a lone, watching figure still etched in her mind.
As they sat in the fading light, a gust of wind rustled the fallen leaves around them, each one carrying the faint scent of ink and old parchment. In that moment, they both understood: the barrier between realms was fraying. The echoes of Everlost were no longer confined to dreams.
At home, Marin's room became a reluctant stage for another silent performance. The map had reappeared on the page in the storybook, the central circle throbbing as if alive—a portal waiting to be traversed. Unlike before, however, this time it was not just an image. Small icons began to emerge around the border: tiny footprints, a gleaming quill, a shattered slipper. Each symbol spoke of a different tale, a different fate now leaking into her reality.
Unable to resist, Marin ran her fingers over the symbols. With each delicate touch, the cool, vibrating energy pulsated beneath her skin, stirring memories she wasn't sure were her own. Somewhere deep inside, in the labyrinth of her unconscious, voices whispered fragments of long-forgotten legends. It was as though the book wasn't just a relic—it was a conduit to the magic that once threaded the very fabric of the world.
A sudden knock on her door startled her from the reverie. It was her mother, worry creasing her brow. "Marin, you're up again? You need to rest." The gentle admonition mingled with concern, hinting at a quiet understanding of things not entirely spoken between them.
But Marin wasn't listening. Her gaze was fixed on the slowly pulsating page, and in that hypnotic glow, she saw movement—a faint shadow flickering at the edge of the map. It wasn't a mindless trick of the light; it felt deliberate, as if someone or something was beckoning her deeper into the mystery.
In the days that followed, townsfolk began to notice subtle shifts. People spoke in hushed tones of odd occurrences: a lingering mist that carried the scent of old paper, doors that creaked open to reveal corridors not present minutes before, and voices echoing on the wind in a language no one could decipher. The boundary between their sleepy world and Everlost was dissolving.
Back at school, Marin and Wyatt found solace in each other's shared uncertainty. In whispered conversations tucked away during lunch breaks, they pieced together what they knew—fragments of fairy tales, legends warped by time and hidden pain, the lingering presence of characters who should have been confined to old stories.
One crisp afternoon, while they sat under the ancient oak, Wyatt revealed a secret he had dared not speak until now. "I found something in the library last night—a faded parchment with a strange sigil on it, similar to the icons in your book. There was a message scribbled on the margin: 'The threshold awaits those who remember.'"
Marin's heart pounded. This wasn't a random coincidence. The sigil, the map, the ink on her pillow—it was as though Everlost was calling, urging them to reclaim the forgotten narratives and mend the fractures between worlds.
"Do you think it means… that we're meant to cross over?" she asked in a hushed tone, eyes wide with both fear and a newfound resolve.
Wyatt hesitated, then met her gaze steadily. "I think it means we have a chance to change everything… or at least see what happened to those stories."
That night, when the town fell silent and the world held its breath, Marin prepared to confront the threshold. With the storybook cradled in her hands, she stepped toward the mirror—the same mirror that had shown that ominous stone corridor in her earlier dream. Its surface seemed to ripple like liquid, drawing her in with a pull both gentle and irresistible.
"Let's find out what happened to the stories," she murmured to herself, almost as if reassuring not just her own spirit, but the quiet legends waiting in the shadows of her memory.
As her fingertips brushed the cool glass, the reflection shifted once more—revealing a dark corridor lined with quills and parchment, beckoning her with silent promises of magic and danger. The threshold was no longer a border—it was an invitation.