"Err… Llyne… Are you seeing what I'm seeing?"
Ronald's voice cracked like a branch underfoot, barely holding itself together. His knees wobbled. His fingers dug tighter into my arm.
I followed his trembling gaze.
The crows. Still perched. Still watching.
My breath hitched.
"Unfortunately," I muttered, the words like lead in my mouth. I tried to pass it off with dry humor, but my heartbeat betrayed me—thudding like war drums beneath my ribs.
I didn't need to fake courage. I needed to borrow it.
Then—like a bolt of lightning to the brain—I had a thought.
So I did the only thing my brain could grasp: I blurted out a fun fact.
"Did you know crows can recognize human faces—and hold grudges?"
I kept my voice light, almost cheerful.
"If you're mean to one, it'll remember you. And worse? It tells its friends. So yeah—one bad crow encounter, and suddenly you're public enemy number one in the bird world.
Basically: be nice to crows. They talk."
I chuckled nervously, praying it would lighten the mood.
It didn't.
Ronald stared at me.
His expression screamed: That was absolutely useless.
I made an "O" with my mouth.
"Don't tell me Ronald bullied crows before? But he's so pure and angelic... Anyone would think the crows were bullying him—if you ignored the size difference," I muttered to myself.
While I was still rambling, Ronald tugged my sleeve.
I turned around.
My breath caught.
The path was gone.
What had once been clear ground was now replaced by a thick, unnatural wall of trees—gnarled and ancient, as if they'd sprouted in the last heartbeat to trap us inside.
"The path… it's gone." My voice dropped to a whisper. "Now, it's sealed with nothing but trees. How is that possible?"
I didn't expect an answer. Not from Ronald. Not from anything in this cursed forest.
"Are we trapped here?" he asked the question I didn't want to ask myself.
I forced myself to inhale—slow, deep, even.
"We can't panic," I said, more to myself than to him. "There must be another way out of here."
I turned back to the structure looming in front of us.
'A house?'
'No—castle. '
Half-forgotten, half-dreamed.
If it hadn't been weathered by time, it would've looked regal. Almost noble. But now, under the weight of fog and crow-song, it stood like a ruin abandoned by history itself.
This shouldn't be here.
The architecture clashed with everything around it—too ornate for the forest, too large for a house. Stone and wood twisted together like relics of a bygone era. A mansion? A stronghold?
No—a boundary.
The windows were blind. The walls flaked paint like skin peeling away. And yet, I felt it—some presence within. Watching.
Waiting.
We moved forward, every step heavy with the pressure of unseen eyes. The fog coiled tighter. The trees pressed in. The cawing of the crows grew louder, building to a cadence that seemed... orchestrated.
The forest felt alive. And it did not welcome us.
As we neared the entrance, a shift rippled through the air. A soundless signal.
Whoosh.
Black wings unfurled in unison. The crows took flight, a hundred blades slicing through the sky in a flurry of motion.
My instincts screamed. I yanked Ronald toward me. The rush of wings passed overhead, a breath away from our skulls.
The world darkened.
Not just from the sun setting—but from something else. Something older.
The atmosphere thickened into something nearly physical. Every step forward was a war.
"Ronald, do you feel that too?"
My voice was low, taut.
Ronald nodded, lips pale. "Yeah. It's like there's something drawing us in."
We were moths flying into a bonfire.
I glanced at the house. The windows remained silent—offering no glimpse of what lay within. My foot scuffed the outer wall. Paint flaked off like dried skin.
"Ah! The paint's peeling off," I mumbled.
The castle—no, the thing—stood like a carcass frozen in time. Each corner wore a story, none of them happy.
Still, something called to us.
I reached out. My hand trembled.
Creeeaak.
The door opened on its own.
No lock. No resistance. Just silent invitation.
A cold wind slipped past my shoulders, whispering forgotten names into my ears.
Inside—pure blackness.
"Should we... Should we go inside?" Ronald's voice had dropped to a mere thread.
I hesitated.
The ghosts in my memory screamed at me to turn back. But something deeper—curiosity? stubbornness?—pulled me forward.
"I don't know. But... if there's a chance for adventure, I guess it's worth exploring, right?"
Ronald's eyes met mine. Something flickered in them—fear, awe, maybe even a spark of belief.
"Adventure… right."
I opened my inventory and pulled out a torchlight.
Click.
Flash.
The beam cut through the dark like a sword, revealing the forgotten decay within.
Dust. Cobwebs. Furniture covered in sheets, frozen mid-existence.
The crows didn't follow us inside, but I felt their eyes at our backs—unblinking, patient.
The air inside was thicker. Older.
Our footsteps echoed as if through a tomb.
We wandered deeper.
Then—
A room.
Hidden behind a collapsed door frame.
Inside: a symbol.
Etched into the floor.
A circle, drawn in lines of ancient geometry, pulsing with a faint glow.
Not fire. Not light.
Something else. Something alive.
We didn't dare step on it.
And then—flicker.
The torchlight dimmed.
Flicker.
Gone.
"You're kidding me! I just bought it!" I shouted, voice bouncing into the shadows.
Darkness swallowed us whole.
And in that void—
Whispers.
No direction. No source. Like the house itself had begun to breathe.
Ronald and I huddled closer.
The crows outside began their chorus again.
Louder.
Unified.
Summoning something.
"Oui. That scared the shit out of me."
The whispering grew louder. I reached for a weapon that couldn't fight spirits.
'Why did those crows suddenly start making noise? Should I shoot them?'
'No.'
I bit my lip, exhaled hard.
'Nope. Shooting the crows won't solve anything.'
The dark was not our enemy. Not yet.
The house wasn't trying to scare us away.
It was welcoming us in.
And somewhere deeper inside—
Rona was waiting.
'At least… I hope so.'