The Night Without Stars
Talia woke to the sound of silence.
Not the normal kind. Not the soft hush of night when crickets sang and the wind teased the shutters. This silence was heavy, pressing, like the whole world was holding its breath.
Her eyes snapped open. The cottage was dark, shadows stretching long across the wooden floor. Mother was still asleep in the next room—Talia could hear her faint breathing—but something outside was… wrong.
Why is it so quiet?
She sat up, clutching her blanket tighter around her shoulders. Normally, the sky glittered with a thousand stars above their little village. But when she pushed open the shutter, the heavens were empty. No stars. No moon. Just a black canvas that felt endless.
Her breath caught.And then she heard it.
Snap.
It was faint, but sharp, like a thread pulled too tight breaking somewhere far away.
Her chest tightened. "...What was that?" she whispered to no one.
Another snap. Then another. In her mind's eye, she suddenly saw them: glowing cords stretching across a vast darkness, fraying one by one. Each time a thread broke, the silence grew heavier, the void wider.
She stumbled back, heart pounding.This wasn't a dream. She knew it wasn't.
The Loom.The old bedtime stories her grandmother used to tell—the weave that bound the world together. But those were just tales for children… weren't they?
Yet here she was, shivering in the dark, watching the sky collapse into nothing.
A whisper brushed her ears. Not in words, but in meaning.Chosen.
Talia froze.
She wanted to scream, but her voice refused to come. Because deep down, in the marrow of her bones, she knew this night was only the beginning.
And whatever the Loom wanted from her—she wasn't ready.
The next morning, sunlight spilled through the shutters as if nothing had happened.
Talia rubbed her eyes, blinking blearily at the familiar warmth. Birds were chirping. Children's laughter echoed from the village square. The sky above was clear, dotted with a few lazy clouds.
Did I… imagine it?
Her mother's voice cut through her thoughts. "Talia! Up already? Good. Fetch water before the market bell rings."
"Yes, Mother," Talia replied automatically, tying her hair back as she grabbed the clay jug. Her legs still felt weak, as if the memory of that suffocating silence hadn't let her go.
She stepped outside, greeted by the dusty road, the smell of baking bread from the communal oven, and the cheerful bustle of neighbors preparing for market day. Everything looked… normal. Too normal.
No one else seemed disturbed. No one mentioned the starless sky.
Talia swallowed hard. So I was the only one who saw it…
At the well, she filled the jug, watching the ripples blur her reflection. That was when it happened.
Snap.
Her head jerked up.
The treeline at the edge of the village shivered. Birds burst out, wings flapping in panicked cries. Shadows stretched unnaturally between the trunks, twisting, writhing, as if something was crawling free from the dark.
Her skin prickled. Every instinct screamed at her to run.
But her legs wouldn't move. She could only watch as a shape emerged from the forest.
Not a wolf. Not a deer.Something else.
It looked wrong, as if its body was stitched from smoke and bone, its form constantly shifting, unraveling at the edges. Its eyes—if they were eyes—were pits of silence.
The jug slipped from her hands and shattered against the stones.
The creature's head snapped toward her.
And the world around her went quiet again.