The dirt wasn't just dirt here. It was memory. It was bone. Selene Ardent's trowel scraped against a fragment of rusted iron, the sound gratingly loud in the hushed concentration of the dig site. A late autumn wind, sharp and smelling of coming rain, whipped stray strands of her dark hair across her face. She didn't bother brushing them away. Her entire world had narrowed to the six-foot trench and the whispers only she could feel humming up from the soil. Not voices, not really. More like… impressions. A lingering chill of sorrow here, a faint echo of laughter there. This patch, though, where the old railway workers' tenements had stood a century ago, was mostly silent. A blank spot. It made the back of her teeth ache.
"Find anything besides mud and regret, Ardent?" called Liam from the next trench over, his voice a familiar, lazy tease.
"Just the usual urban decay," she replied, her tone drier than the dust she was sifting. "And your future if you don't start actually digging." She heard his chuckle and focused back on her work. Her professor, Dr. Evans, believed this site was a treasure trove of early industrial-era history. Selene felt the truth underneath—something older, stranger. A current of energy that predated the first brick laid for this city.
Then her trowel hit something that wasn't rock or rusted metal. It was a soft, definitive clink. She leaned in, using her brush with careful, practiced strokes. The black soil fell away to reveal a tarnished silver oval, etched with intricate, swirling patterns that seemed to move in the fading afternoon light. A locket. Her breath hitched. The moment her gloved fingers made contact, a jolt went through her—a sudden, visceral punch of heat and a scream so high and thin it was almost beyond hearing.
She yanked her hand back as if burned. The phantom sensation lingered. "You okay?" Marisa's voice came from the edge of the trench, her camera already clicking, capturing the find. "Whoa. That's gorgeous. And seriously creepy. Looks like it's seen things."
"Yeah," Selene breathed, her heart hammering against her ribs. "Seen things." She reached for it again, this time with a bare hand. The connection was instant and violent.
The world didn't just fall away; it shattered.
The air wasn't cold anymore. It was thick with smoke and the coppery tang of blood. She was running, her bare feet slapping on cold, wet stone, a woman's desperate sobs echoing from somewhere ahead of her in the oppressive dark. A name was on her lips, a name she didn't know. "Elara!" The locket was clutched in her hand, not found but given, a precious, terrible weight. "Don't let them have it! Promise me!" The voice was raw with fear. Behind her, the roar of fire grew louder, a hungry, living thing chasing her—
"Selene!"
The vision snapped. She was on her knees in the trench, gasping, the real world slamming back into place with the force of a physical blow. Dr. Evans was peering down at her, his face etched with concern. "Selene? You fainted for a second there. The heat, probably. You should call it a day."
"I'm… I'm fine," she stammered, her voice unsteady. She wasn't fine. The taste of smoke was still in her mouth. She clumsily pocketed the locket, its metal now unnaturally warm against her thigh. She couldn't leave it. It felt… attached to her.
An hour later, the site was closed, and everyone had dispersed. Selene lingered, telling Marisa she'd catch up. She needed a moment. The sun had dipped below the skyline, painting the clouds in bruised shades of purple and orange. The dig site, once a place of academic curiosity, now felt like a gaping wound in the earth. She stood at its edge, pulling the locket from her pocket. It sat in her palm, inert. Just a piece of old jewelry.
Then the etchings on its surface began to glow with a faint, sickly green light.
A low moan built in the air around her, rising from the ground itself. The wind died. The distant sounds of the city—the honking cars, the sirens—muffled into nothingness. The air grew frigid. From the center of the trench, a form began to coalesce from the shadows and disturbed earth, pulling itself into a shuddering, humanoid shape. It was a thing of mud and memory and profound anguish, its face a shifting, screaming mask. It fixed on the locket in her hand, on her, with a hatred that was ancient and absolute.
It lunged.
Selene stumbled backward, a scream trapped in her throat. She tripped over a pile of dirt, landing hard on the pavement. The thing flowed over the edge of the trench like a wave of solid darkness, reaching for her with limbs that dripped and dissolved and re-formed. She scrambled back, her hands scraping on rough concrete. This was it. This was how she died, consumed by a nightmare she'd accidentally awakened.
A wall of black fire erupted between her and the advancing specter.
It roared silently, heatless, a darkness so profound it seemed to eat the light around it. And standing within the flames, untouched, was a man. Tall, wearing a long, dark coat that seemed to drink the dying light. His face was all sharp, furious angles, his eyes glowing with the same infernal darkness as the fire he commanded. He didn't look at her. His attention was fixed on the spirit, his hand raised.
With a contemptuous flick of his wrist, the dark flames lashed out, wrapping around the shrieking entity. They didn't burn it; they unraveled it. The thing came apart like rotten cloth, its form dissolving into tendrils of shadow that were then consumed by the fire until nothing remained but a fading, acrid smell of ozone and grave soil.
The fire vanished. The sudden silence was deafening.
The man turned his head, and his gaze locked onto hers. The fury in his eyes didn't diminish, but it was joined by something else—a flicker of stark, unnerving surprise. He took a single, abrupt step toward her.
Selene didn't wait. Adrenaline screamed through her veins. She shoved herself to her feet, turned, and ran. She didn't look back. She just ran, her lungs burning, her pulse a wild drum in her ears. She didn't stop until she was three blocks away, slumped against the cold brick wall of a closed boutique, gasping for air.
Her hand went to her pocket. The locket was still there. She pulled it out. It was no longer cold metal. It was warm, almost alive, and its faint pulse echoed the terrifying rhythm of the fire that had just tried to consume her.