Scene 1 – After the Chains
The cabin was too quiet.
Kael sat on the splintered floorboards, holding Elena against him, his ears ringing from the storm's collapse. Every muscle in his body throbbed with exhaustion, but it wasn't the kind of silence that felt like safety. It was the kind that pressed in, heavy, unnatural.
Elena stirred, her fingers tightening around his shirt. "Kael… it's still here."
He didn't ask what she meant. He felt it too. The air was wrong. Each breath seemed thicker than the last, as if the cabin itself was exhaling against their skin. The walls groaned not from the storm outside—but from something shifting inside them.
A floorboard near the hearth bulged, rising as though pushed from below. Kael's pulse spiked. Slowly, the wood sank back into place, the cabin sighing like it had lungs.
Elena shuddered. "It's alive…"
Kael pulled her closer, eyes locked on the trembling boards. His voice was a whisper, but edged with steel.
