Bound by Shadows

Chapter Three

ᴇʟᴀʀᴀ'ꜱ ᴘᴏᴠ

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A loud bang jolted me awake, my heart slamming against my ribs. The room was still dark, but the sound of the window crashing open echoed in the quiet. I rubbed my eyes, disoriented, my breath uneven as I slowly sat up.

I never opened the window.

The rain still poured outside, wind whipping through the trees, but the curtains fluttered, pulled by the breeze now sneaking into the room. I hesitated for a moment, staring at the open window as a strange chill crawled over my skin. Something felt off.

I stood slowly, the chair creaking beneath me as I pushed away from the desk, my bare feet cold against the floor. Every step toward the window felt heavier than the last, my mind still clouded from sleep and the jarring wake-up call.

How had it opened on its own?

I reached the window, bracing against the icy gusts that blew in, and glanced outside. The street was deserted, shadows cast from the streetlights stretching along the wet pavement. Nothing moved. Nothing out of place. Just the quiet town and the relentless storm.

Swallowing back the unease rising in my chest, I shut the window with a forceful tug, latching it securely before stepping back. The room fell quiet again, save for the muffled patter of rain on the glass. I rubbed my arms, trying to shake the sense that something was watching, waiting.

When I turned back toward my desk, my heart skipped a beat. The clock's soft glow told me I'd been asleep for hours. Great, I'd lost most of the night, and I was no closer to finishing the studying I so desperately needed to do.

But that wasn't what caught my attention.

There, sitting on top of my scattered papers, was a small envelope.

I blinked, my pulse quickening. That definitely wasn't there before.

A tiny black butterfly rested on top of it, its wings folded delicately, almost blending into the dark shadows of the room. The air around me felt suddenly heavy, my breath catching as I approached the desk.

The envelope was simple, off-white, the edges crisp, almost too perfect. I picked it up, holding it between my fingers, the weight of it strange—more substantial than any regular piece of paper. My heart thudded in my chest as I carefully opened it, the butterfly still motionless beside it.

Inside was a single card, its surface as black as ink, and in the middle, written in a delicate, silver script:

To the one who walks between shadows,

In the silence of the night, where secrets are stitched into the fabric of time, your presence has not gone unnoticed. Threads of fate have tightened around you, pulling you closer to the edge of a world hidden just beyond the veil of your reality. For you, the whispers of destiny have grown too loud to ignore, and the hour has come for you to face what lingers in the dark.

The stars have aligned, and the path before you is not one of choice, but of inevitability.

In these halls of the unseen, you will not walk alone, but be warned—the company you keep may guide or betray, and every step forward may lead you deeper into the unknown. This is not a trial of the strongest, but of the sharpest, for it is not muscle that cuts through the shadow, but the mind that navigates it.

You are invited to a realm where illusion dances with reality, and only those who see with more than their eyes will survive. Time is your ally and your enemy, and the stakes, though unspoken, are greater than you can imagine.