After the chaos that consumed him beneath the blood moon, Mael's steps carry him into silence—a silence not of peace, but of graves. Before him lies a village long forgotten, where stone and ash still whisper the final cries of those who dared to resist Kael. Here, shadows linger, and the dead refuse to rest. Yet among the ruins, Mael is not alone. A cloaked figure emerges, neither living nor fully gone, and with its voice the collective sorrow of the fallen speaks. The Village of Echoes has waited for him… and it demands to be heard.
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The path before Mael narrowed until it spilled into a hollow where the forest broke apart, revealing ruins swallowed by time. Under the blood moon's cold light, roofs sagged like broken spines, walls cracked open with moss clawing at their edges, and empty windows stared back like sockets of skulls. The silence here was not the silence of stillness but of suffocation, heavy and deliberate, as though the land itself grieved. Mael stopped at the edge of the village, his breath shallow, the copper taste of blood still lingering at the back of his throat. Something in the air warned him: these ruins remembered, and they would make him remember too.
As he stepped into the first street, his boots crunched on brittle bones of wood and glass. Charms still dangled from shattered doorways—rings of salt blackened with fire, strands of dried herbs shriveled to dust, and crude silver tokens nailed to lintels. Their presence screamed of desperation. These people had not gone quietly; they had prepared, fortified, prayed, and yet nothing had saved them. Mael crouched near a scorched wall where claw marks raked through stone, deep and violent, as though a beast had tried to shred the village itself. He touched the grooves, and a chill skittered up his spine. He knew these marks too well—his kind had left them.
Guilt rose inside him, sharp and merciless. His hand trembled against the scarred stone, because for a heartbeat he saw his own claws there, saw his own rage carving through the helpless. "It wasn't me," he whispered to himself, though the ruins didn't care. The blood moon did not care. Yet the silence pressed in, a suffocating reminder that whether his hands had done it or not, his blood was tied to the same savagery. If Kael had done this, then Mael carried the same curse. And if he had any hope of standing against that darkness, he needed to understand why the dead refused to rest here.
That was when he heard it. A whisper—thin as smoke, soft as the breath of someone dying. At first, he thought it was only the wind threading through cracks, but then it came again, shaping his name: Mael. His chest tightened. He turned sharply, scanning the empty street, every shadow twitching under the blood moon's light. Nothing moved. No footprints but his own. Still, the voice slithered closer, threading into his skull, insistent and fragile. He gritted his teeth, refusing to believe, yet the sound drew him forward, luring him past the remains of wells choked with weeds and stalls collapsed under rot.
The further he walked, the more the village revealed its scars. A fountain stood at the center, its basin filled not with water but with blackened earth and broken blades. Around it lay skeletons, some small, some tall, tangled in positions of desperation—mothers clutching children, men with arms thrown across doorways, and scattered silver knives rusting in their bony grips. Mael's stomach lurched at the sight. This was not slaughter in haste; this was extermination. They had fought to the very last, and when they fell, the village fell with them. He closed his eyes briefly, seeing their final screams painted into the air.
When he opened them again, he realized the whispers had multiplied. They no longer came as one voice, but as many—layered, overlapping, echoing each other in tones of despair and warning. Some were sharp, accusing, others weeping, and some even childlike. "Why didn't you come?" "We burned our prayers for you…" "Mael… Mael…" His name drummed like a curse. He staggered backward, covering his ears, but the sound didn't dim. It came from the ground beneath him, from the bones, from the very walls. The village itself was speaking, dragging him deeper into its grief.
The moonlight shifted, silvering the fog that began to coil through the streets. Within it, shapes formed—shadows stretched into the outline of people, flickering like candlelight, vanishing and reappearing as though caught between worlds. Mael froze, breath sharp in his chest. And then, through the fog, a single figure emerged with clarity. Cloaked in tattered black, the figure moved with a weight that was neither fully alive nor wholly dead. Its face was hidden, but when it raised its head, the whispers hushed as if all voices were contained within it. Mael knew instinctively: this was no survivor. This was the village itself.
"You walk on our graves, cursed child." The voice was not one, but many, woven together in broken harmony. It vibrated against Mael's bones. He clenched his fists, his wolf blood prickling beneath his skin. "Who are you?" he demanded, though he already knew the answer. The figure tilted its head, and the shadows around it stirred like restless smoke. "We are those who burned, those who bled, those who begged for dawn and found only teeth. We are the village Kael erased. We are what remains."
Anger surged in Mael's throat, cutting through fear. "Kael did this to you," he said. "He slaughtered you. I had no part in it." The figure's voice deepened, heavy with grief turned to venom. "You carry his stain. Your kind tore through us as if our prayers were nothing. Did you not smell our fear in the air that night? Did your blood not rejoice?" Mael's jaw tightened. He wanted to shout back that he hadn't been there, that he hadn't chosen this curse, but the words tangled in shame. They were right—whether by his hand or another, the destruction wore the shape of his beast.
"You think I wanted this?" Mael's voice cracked, echoing through the hollow streets. His chest rose and fell like a storm trapped inside him. "I didn't choose this blood. I didn't choose to lose everyone I loved. And I swear to you, I will end him—I will end Kael if it's the last thing I do." For a moment, silence stretched. Then the figure's hood dipped slightly, as though the chorus of spirits weighed his words. "Bravery is ash without truth. Kael hunts not only to kill, but to claim. What he leaves behind is worse than death. Do you know why he fears the blood moon? Do you know why he watches you, Mael?"
The question cut into him like silver. His lips parted, but no answer came. He had felt Kael's presence, a gaze that crawled under his skin, yet he never understood why it lingered on him with such hunger. The cloaked figure stepped closer, and Mael swore he felt the chill of graves seep through the air. "Because you are not like the others. Your curse is not the same. Even the beast inside you recoils at what you are becoming." The voices broke into a shiver of whispers, splintering into fragments—"more than wolf" … "born of moon" … "Kael fears what he cannot bind."
The words burned through Mael's mind, twisting with both terror and revelation. His chest felt too small for the storm raging inside. "If that's true," he said, his voice shaking but resolute, "then tell me what I am. Tell me what this curse is turning me into." The figure stilled, shadows quivering at its edges. Then it spoke with sorrow so heavy it seemed to bend the air: "We cannot name it. We only know this: if Kael fears you, it is because he has seen in you something darker than himself. And what we fear… is that you will one day stand among his kind, not against him."
The words struck him harder than any blade. Mael stumbled back, rage and dread colliding in his chest. "No," he growled, fangs pricking his gums as his wolf threatened to surge. "I am not him. I will never be him." The figure raised a trembling hand as if in blessing or curse, and its many voices softened into a hollow whisper. "Then prove it, Mael. Prove it by carrying our voices with you. Do not let us vanish into ash without purpose. Remember us when the moon stains the sky. Remember what Kael took, and what you must not become."
Before he could reply, the figure began to unravel. Its form fractured into ribbons of smoke, each one carrying faint cries, laughter, and prayers that scattered through the ruins like dust. Mael reached out instinctively, desperate to hold onto their presence, but his hand passed through air colder than death. And then they were gone. The village was silent once more, but it was not the silence of emptiness—it was the silence of voices buried in his chest, now his to bear. His body trembled, his breath ragged, and the weight of the dead settled heavy on his shoulders.
He sank to his knees in the dirt, clutching the earth as if it could anchor him from collapsing. The blood moon loomed above, merciless, its light painting the ruins in silver wounds. Mael's thoughts spiraled: Kael feared him. The dead warned him. And somewhere in between, his own beast stirred restlessly, neither ally nor enemy, but something stranger. As the night deepened, a shadow moved at the edge of the ruins—silent, deliberate, watching. Mael felt it without looking, a presence colder than the spirits and sharper than his guilt. His heart froze. Kael's reach was closer than ever. The Village of Echoes had given him truth, but truth came with a cost: he was no lo
nger just haunted. He was hunted.