The wind was colder that evening.Kean felt it in his bones —a silent call... tugging.
It wasn't a voice this time.Not even a whisper.Just a pull.Like his shadow remembered something he didn't.
He followed it.
Past the lonely field.Past the frozen well.Through the old trees behind the shrine —where children were told never to play.
But he wasn't playing.
There, between two crumbling rocks,was a hole —too narrow for an adult.But just right for a curious boy.
Inside: darkness.Still. Dry. Waiting.
He crawled in.
His breath echoed.Each step felt… older.
Then the floor gave out beneath him.
And Kean fell.
Not far. But far enough.Into something built.
Stone walls.Old carvings.Ancient writing that moved when you stared too long.
At the center of the roomwas a broken statue.
A humanoid figure…but its eyes were gouged out,and its mouth sewn shut.
And behind it —a door.Not wood. Not metal.But something that shimmered like memory.
It pulsed.
As Kean touched the door,it didn't open.But something in him did.
A sharp pressure.His heartbeat slowed.A memory not his own flashed—A battlefield. Blood. A man screaming in blue fire.
He pulled his hand away, gasping.
Suddenly—he wasn't alone.
Footsteps. Behind him.
He turned.
Nothing.
But the stone walls whispered now.
"Back again…?""Not ready… not yet…"
Kean ran.
Crawled back through the hole.Dirt in his mouth.Scratches on his arms.
But when he came out —the world felt different.
The wind whispered slower.The shadows watched quieter.And Kean's aura…had started to burn colder.
He never told anyone about the hidden path.
But from that day on,he knew something ancient was beneath the village.
Not asleep.Just waiting.