At the heart of the abandoned Church of Saint Darius, Father Erikos Vanthorp knelt in the darkness. Silence hung around him like a funeral shroud, wrapping the crumbling walls in a hush that bore witness to long-forgotten sins.
His weary breath lingered in the cold air, vanishing like wandering spirits seeking escape.
Between his long, trembling fingers, he held a small glass vial containing black sand that slithered within like something alive—like a serpent waiting to strike.
He lifted the vial closer to his face and whispered, his voice barely audible:
> "Truth... are you still here? Or did you bury yourself beneath the worlds below?"
A single bead of sweat fell from his brow onto the glass. The moment it touched the sand, the vial trembled violently, as if something inside had stirred—eager to break free.
Then—three sharp knocks shattered the ancient stillness.
Erikos slowly turned his head toward the heavy wooden door, creaking under the weight of wind and rain. When he opened it, dim light revealed a woman standing at the threshold.
Her crimson hair was soaked with rain, and her emerald eyes shimmered in the dark like a cat's.
It was Isolde Calmor. A woman he had known well… but tonight, she looked different—
as if she had returned from somewhere no one truly comes back from.
She stepped inside, rain dripping from her black cloak. Her voice came low, edged with tension, as though she feared someone might overhear:
> "I searched for you everywhere… even in places no sane soul dares enter past midnight."
Erikos's gaze dropped to her hands. She held a black suede envelope, thick drops of dark viscous fluid seeping through its seams—like a fresh wound that refused to close.
He murmured, eyes fixed on the dripping envelope:
> "Is that... the Bleeding Sand?"
She shook her head slowly, her voice a trembling whisper:
> "No... it bleeds memory—
the memory of a city that shouldn't exist."
Erikos placed the envelope gently on a broken wooden table and carefully tore it open.
Inside was not an ordinary map. It was human skin, etched with the ruins of a city named Ramata—a name absent from any modern chart.
Beside it was a letter, written in rust-colored ink—possibly blood.
Its message was chilling:
> "The Stone Shepherd waits beneath the Seven Spires... The prodigal son's hour has come."
A black wax seal, marked with a one-eyed triangle sigil, pulsed faintly with a ghostly blue glow, as if alive.
Isolde reached out and traced the dried ink with her fingertips.
> "This letter is from Alberic Sandford," she murmured.
"He vanished a week after discovering it… in the Oldrak catacombs beneath his estate."
The moment Erikos touched the map, the entire church quaked.
The stained-glass windows exploded inward, dissolving into a cloud of black dust.
The suffocating scent of burning frankincense filled the air, mingling with faint chants in a dead language that hadn't been spoken in centuries.
A whisper brushed against Isolde's ear—a voice that wasn't hers:
> "Erikos... we have waited so long."
He stepped slowly toward the altar, but halted near the stone wall behind it.
There, glowing faintly in the dark, something he had never seen before was etched into the rock.
Ancient Oldrak runes burned like embers, flickering softly.
In the corner, a grandfather clock ticked in reverse, as if recording a history yet to unfold.
Glass vials lined a nearby shelf, filled with strange, unknowable liquids—blood? Liquid shadow?
He placed his hand against the stone, his breath caught in his throat.
> "This was never a church... but an observatory.
For something below."
Returning to his table, Erikos grabbed a black leather-bound journal and began to write, his hand slightly trembling:
> "October 12th, 1887.
At last—the proof.
The sand speaks, and it knows my true name.
Saint Darius was never built to worship God...
but to watch.
I will find Ramata—even if it costs me my soul."
He paused, then added a verse that had surfaced in his mind the moment he saw the map:
> Iron weeps beneath the feet of the damned,
The sand whispers the names of the forgotten dead,
The Shepherd rises from the ruins above,
His face carved from everyone's memory.
He closed his journal slowly and glanced at the vial beside him.
The black sand inside was still moving—restless.
Outside, the wind battered the church doors.
And somewhere far to the south…
Came the echo of footsteps—
Though no one was meant to be there.
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