As the first candle flickered to life, a thin thread of smoke curled into the stale air. Imogen stared at the tiny flame, her breath shallow, her ears tuned to every creak and distant hum.
Then time moved.
One minute.
Two.
Three.
Four.
And with each passing minute, something stirred—quiet, formless, but there. A wind without origin began to circle the room. It wasn't loud, nor forceful—just enough to stir the corners of her hair, just enough to make the flames tremble.
It rotated, gently, deliberately, clockwise—north to east, east to south, south to west, and back again.
She felt it pass behind her like a ghost that didn't care to hide.
The second candle flared to life. She hadn't lit it.
Her breath caught.
Imogen stared at it, unmoving, pulse rising in her throat. Had she...? No. She knew she hadn't. Her matches were still in her lap, untouched since the first. The room was quiet, save for the soft whff of fire and that circling breeze.
Something was here.
Not physically. Not yet. But the air felt aware—like the ritual was watching her, not the other way around.
At five minutes past the hour, the third candle ignited.
A low hum crept through the floor, like a forgotten engine starting far below. The journal on the floor trembled slightly, barely perceptible, and then settled.
Imogen closed her eyes, trying to ground herself—but all she felt was displacement. Like her thoughts weren't quite fitting inside her head anymore. A cold sweat bloomed at the back of her neck. Her heart stuttered. For a split second, she swore she could hear something breathing in rhythm with her.
Then—six minutes.
The final candle lit with a soft, reluctant flicker.
All four flames now danced in a perfect rhythm, blown gently by that not-quite-wind that continued to spiral through the room. The ritual ring pulsed with warmth and something else—something older. Something waiting.
The time was 03:06.
One minute remained.
The list's final lines burned in her mind:
At 03:07 call his name.
They will answer.
He's too important.
Join them. Or he is lost.
Her mouth felt dry. Her thoughts tangled in dread. And somewhere, far off in the back of her mind, a whisper she didn't recognize tried to form words she wasn't ready to hear.
She looked at the pocket watch.
03:06 and 42 seconds.
Imogen opened her mouth.
"Julian,"
she whispered.
The moment the name left her lips, something shifted.
The wind faltered. The flames wavered. The very air in the room hesitated—as if reality held its breath. Was she hallucinating? Or had the walls themselves shuddered?
"Julian Caul."
This time, her voice was louder, trembling but sure. It echoed through the candlelit space, hollow and strange.
Now it was undeniable.
The flames guttered low. The circling wind trembled as if recoiling. The air thickened with pressure—like the atmosphere before a scream.
Then came the whispers.
Not from her, not from outside, but inside—inside her skull, her spine, her thoughts. They carried no clear language, no grammar or voice, and yet they meant something. Words that bled through sense. Words that didn't belong in this world.
Truths unformed. Meanings not meant for mouths.
The mirror cracked.
Split.
Shattered.
And then—dissolved.
Where the wall should have been behind it, there was only darkness.
Not emptiness. Not void.
But a formless dark that pulsed and writhed, endless and shifting. It breathed without lungs, moved without shape, a living impossibility that did not belong in her world—or perhaps she no longer belonged in it.
A final gust swept through the room, harsh and absolute.
All four candles went out at once.
And then, silence—
No.
Not silence.
The whispers didn't fade. They grew.
From soft threads into a torrent. A storm of soundless voices that spoke in thoughts older than thought, truths deeper than language. They flooded her, pressed into her soul like fingers into clay, remaking her sense of meaning until everything she'd ever believed felt fragile. Wrong. Small.
She stood there, breathless, trembling before the veil of something ancient.
And it had answered.
She dropped to her knees, clutching her head as the voices carved through her mind like broken glass. They twisted and pressed against her skull—not just sound, but meaning—too vast, too impossible.
"Make it stop," she whispered, barely audible over the storm inside her head.
But then—
It changed.
The chaos collapsed inward, the infinite fragments fusing into something coherent. A shape. A thought. A voice.
She didn't want to understand it. Every instinct screamed against it. But the voice didn't care. It told her truth, not in words, but in something deeper—as if truth had never needed language to begin with.
Imogen stood on trembling legs, her breath catching in her throat. She reached forward without knowing why, her hand moving on something older than will.
She grabbed the pocket watch.
Its surface was ice-cold, ticking backward like a dying star.
And without hesitation, she shoved it into the darkness where the mirror once stood.
The moment it vanished into that formless void, the room responded.
Her journal—her mother's journal—erupted into flames.
It burst open, pages twisting, curling, devouring themselves in an elegant cascade of fire. The flames arced outward, swallowing the room in gold and crimson, heatless and bright.
She screamed—but not from pain.
Because nothing burned.
Not the floor. Not the walls. Not her.
Only the journal.
Singed and charring along its spine, it shuddered, fluttered open as if by unseen hands—and the fire poured into it, like the book had become a bottomless pit, a gate with no end.
She stood paralyzed, watching as the flames were swallowed whole, page after page absorbing light and voice and memory.
And she knew—something had been accepted.
as the flames where engulfed the books pages began to twist and turn and then began forming letters and images the first was
As the flames were swallowed into the journal, its pages began to twist and flutter as if alive—flickering with unseen breath. Words did not merely appear—they formed, burned into place with eerie precision, each letter etching itself like a scar.
The first page bled with ink and fire.
NAME: Imogen Rell (Accepted)
RANK: Watcher (Veil-Touched)
TIER: 1
ECHO(S): Ember Veil (Dormant)
ECHO PATHWAY: Rage / Anger — Ashen Rite
ECHO ANCHOR: Ember Rite
ANCHOR TYPE: Artifact
A sharp breath caught in her throat. Her name... but this wasn't written by her. This was written for her.
And the book wasn't finished.
The page turned without touch, and more burned through:
CURRENT TASK:
Locate and retrieve Julian Caul (Innate Echo Bearer)
HINT:
You've been planted within the Veil.
Make your way to the condemned area of the Psychology Building—the Red Wing.
Inside, there lies a forgotten hallway.
At 03:07, an impossible corridor opens.
Walk three steps forward
Then seven steps back.
You have one hour to reach him.
Time is of the essence.
The pages stopped turning. The ink dried. The journal fell still in her hands, but it radiated warmth—or was it breath?
And in the flickering candlelight, Imogen understood:
This was no longer just about Julian.
She had been chosen.