The thick darkness writhed as if alive, a suffocating tide crawling with countless rotting bodies twisted into unnatural shapes. The sickening crunch of snapping bone and a stomach-churning stench assaulted the senses. Veins of violet miasma spiderwebbed across the ground, tearing it asunder, swallowing everything whole. Despairing screams vanished into the gloom, and the damp earth quickly drank its fill of filthy blood.
Seraphina Crane's eyes snapped open, a ragged gasp tearing from her throat. There was no stench of decay, no terrifying miasma, no searing pain ripping through her body. It had all been a nightmare… hadn't it?
But then her eyes landed on the glowing screen of an Apple computer on the nearby table, and she shot upright. No. Even in a nightmare, she shouldn't be here…
Her eyes darted warily around the room. It was a small, old apartment, barely twenty square meters, tucked away downtown. It felt both strange and achingly familiar. Her gaze swept hesitantly across every surface, searching for something, anything, she recognized.
Taped to the opposite wall was a poster, years out of date, featuring a pop star gyrating energetically amidst splashing water. There was an old table, mismatched chairs. She looked down at herself – a loose white hoodie, Lululemon cycling shorts. Beneath her, the faded linen sofa felt worn. To her right, sunlight streamed through the balcony door, illuminating two pairs of clean, old trainers drying on a rack outside.
If she wasn't mistaken… this was the place she'd lived more than ten years ago. Fresh out of university, scraping by on a pitiful salary, stuck in this cramped, dingy, cheap city apartment, complaining endlessly about her lot in life.
Her eyes fixed on a cardboard box on the table, holding a half-eaten pepperoni pizza. Her stomach gave a low growl. A decade ago, this was just junk food. But in the wasteland she'd come from, a single greasy slice was a treasure beyond measure, something you'd risk – or trade – your life for.
Seph stared at the remaining pizza, a ravenous hunger gripping her, mouth watering uncontrollably. But she held back. Closing her eyes, she bit down hard on the tip of her tongue. Sharp, grounding pain shot through her. The coppery tang of blood filled her mouth, but there was none of the tell-tale numbness or dizzying disorientation.
Which meant… this wasn't some illusion conjured by the violet miasma. This was real. Which meant… she was back? Back ten years?
The thought was utterly, wildly, fantastically bizarre.
Needing proof, Seph tore her eyes away from the pizza, rose unsteadily, and walked to the window. She hesitated for only a moment before sliding it open. She wasn't met with chilling damp and darkness, or the choking miasma thick with screams and terror. Instead, warm sunlight kissed her face, carried on a gentle, refreshing breeze. Below, the street hummed with the familiar hustle and bustle of city life, just as it had ten years before.
Seph's heart began to thrum, a rapid beat against her ribs, as if her body was finally remembering how to truly live. She took a slow step back, closing the window with a steady hand, but inside, her heart hammered like a trapped bird. A bright, fierce light sparked in her eyes.
She stood frozen for a long moment before turning back to the sofa. With trembling fingers, she woke the computer, checking the date on the screen, then checking it again, and again. Three minutes crawled by before she finally let go of the mouse, a fragile calm beginning to settle over the storm in her chest.
If this was real – if the date wasn't lying – then she was truly back. One year before the end began. She didn't know if this was some cruel twist of fate, a cosmic prank, or… a second chance granted by forces unknown.
Whatever the reason, simply being here, being reborn, was the most staggering gift imaginable.
The initial shock had barely begun to ebb when a sudden thought electrified her. She sprang from the sofa and bolted towards the small room crammed with junk.
Calling it a storage room was generous; it was really just a dumping ground for old, forgotten belongings. Guided by a hazy memory, she rummaged frantically until, buried beneath a dusty cardboard box in the far corner, her fingers closed around a plaster statue. It depicted a six-winged angel, perhaps eighteen inches tall, and surprisingly heavy. Carved entirely from plaster and coated with a clear resin that had yellowed with age, its crevices were choked with grime and dust. It looked utterly unremarkable, the sort of thing you wouldn't give a second glance if you saw it abandoned on the pavement.
A look of fierce joy, however, lit up Seph's face. The statue felt solid, weighty in her hands. As a child, she'd always assumed it was solid, only discovering by accident much later that it concealed a hollow cavity, roughly the size of her palm. Unfortunately, by the time that discovery had been made, the statue was already smashed to pieces, its hidden contents mostly destroyed by fire. Only a single, thumb-sized wooden wand had survived, salvaged from a miraculously intact fragment.
That wand… it had been her key to surviving the horrors of the world that came after.
Seph remembered watching her father clean this very statue when she was young, his movements careful, almost reverent. It bore the Crane family crest. He'd told her stories – that the Cranes were descended from an ancient line of wizards, masters of magic, but that much of the knowledge had been lost by his time. By Seph's generation, she was, for all intents and purposes, a Muggle. This statue was the last tangible link to a forgotten legacy.
Forcing a semblance of calm, Seph lowered the angel statue to the floor and began meticulously searching for a hidden catch, a secret mechanism to access the hollow within. If there wasn't a way in, how had anything been placed inside? She ran her hands over it again, and then a third time. Nothing.
Smashing it open risked destroying whatever lay inside, just like before. And asking for help? Utterly out of the question.
Fingers tracing the delicate lines of the wings, the intricate folds of the sculpted robes, Seph searched for any hint of a seam, a button, a clue. She scrutinized every square inch, praying for a hidden switch or perhaps even a word, a whispered spell. Her father had spoken of a unique bond between the Crane bloodline and this statue; maybe the key lay in that connection.
But after several long minutes, she had found absolutely nothing. The surface remained smooth and unyielding, offering no purchase, no hint of a hidden opening. A sliver of doubt crept in. Had her father held something back? Or was the knowledge of how to open it truly lost to time?
Just as despair began to set in, her fingers grazed the very bottom of the statue's base. A faint, unexpected prickling sensation shot up her arm. Startled, Seph snatched her hand back, peering closer. There, etched into the plaster, were faint, almost invisible lines – not natural flaws in the stone, but deliberate markings, like tiny, intricate symbols.
They were incredibly faint, shallow carvings that almost vanished into the texture of the plaster. If not for that odd prickling, she would certainly have overlooked them entirely. Hesitantly, she reached out again, gently resting her fingertips on the strange markings.
This time, the sensation was sharper, clearer – like a tiny jolt of static electricity. At the same moment, she felt a distinct warmth emanating from deep within the statue, a pulse that seemed to resonate with something dormant inside her.
Seph's pulse quickened. This had to be it. She focused, dredging her memory for any scrap of her father's cryptic talk about their family's bloodline and its connection to magic. A fragmented phrase surfaced from the depths of her mind – 'Blood is the key… awaken the sleeping power…'
Gritting her teeth against the sudden resolve, Seph didn't hesitate. Rummaging quickly in a nearby toolbox, she found a small utility knife. A swift, shallow slice across her fingertip brought forth a single, bright red bead of blood. Carefully, deliberately, she let the drop fall onto the faint symbols on the statue's base.
The instant the blood touched the plaster, the etched lines flared, coming alive with a soft, internal light. A low hum vibrated through the statue. Then, with a soft grating sound, the base slowly, smoothly, split apart, revealing a dark, hollow space within.
Elation surged through Seph. Grabbing a small camping flashlight from the junk room clutter, she aimed its beam into the opening. The first thing she saw was a small bundle wrapped in cloth. Drawing it out, she discovered a sheet of ancient-looking parchment, folded down to the size of a sugar cube. Carefully, she unfolded it. It expanded astonishingly, revealing a surface nearly five feet square, densely covered in tiny, cramped script. A quick glance suggested it was some kind of catalogue, perhaps a record of magical spells.
Next, her fingers closed around something roughly the size of her fist. As soon as it left the darkness of the compartment, a palpable aura of death and decay filled the small room, accompanied by a truly ghastly stench. Its shape was indistinct, like a shifting, writhing mass of blackness, radiating a deeply unsettling energy. The smell was vile, hundreds of times worse than the most putrid rot imaginable. Seph's heart hammered against her ribs. Instinct screamed that this thing was profoundly dangerous, perhaps tied to some potent curse. Handling it with extreme caution, she found an old lead box amongst the clutter, placed the object inside, clamped the lid shut, and muttered a few simple sealing charms she vaguely remembered, setting it aside for the moment.
Lastly, she lifted out the wooden wand, turning it over in her fingers. She remembered it clearly from before – found amidst the shattered remains of the statue, charred almost black by fire. But the wand she held now was different. Its smooth wood possessed a faint, warm, reddish hue.
Deciphering ancient spells would take time, perhaps years. The stinking, shadowy object was an unnerving enigma best left sealed for now. Only the wand felt remotely familiar, a tool she had at least some experience with, however rudimentary.
Driven by a need to understand something, she gathered a knife and a pointed awl, intending to pry open the wand's casing and examine its core, assuming it had one. She pushed, prodded, and scraped, putting all her strength into it, but achieved absolutely nothing. The wand's surface remained stubbornly pristine, without a single scratch or dent to show for her efforts. Sweat beaded on Seph's forehead from the exertion.
A sense of bewildered shock washed over her. She'd known the wand was special, not some ordinary piece of wood, but to resist her strongest attempts to damage it so completely… What was this thing made of?