The well was half-collapsed, choked with ivy and bound in rusted iron. The circular frame had been reinforced with broken boards—as if someone had tried to cover it, not draw from it.
No one stood near. No one looked at it.
But I couldn't look away.
I knelt by the rim. Cold air rose from within, dry and sharp—like breath from an open grave.
Carved around the edge were words I couldn't read at first—then slowly, they rearranged, like the language book was still helping me decode the world.
"Here lies the silence of our sins."
The stones around the well were discolored—stained deeper than time should've allowed.
I leaned forward and called down.
"Hello?"
My voice echoed, then vanished. No splash. No depth. Just absence.
And then, again—soft, so soft I almost missed it—
A whisper.
Not a word.
A sob.
I drew back fast, heart in my throat.
"You're not the first to hear it," a voice said behind me.
I turned to see one of the older women from the camp—gray cloak, long beads, no smile. She stood at a distance, arms crossed.
"But the others who did aren't here anymore," she said. "Whatever sleeps down there doesn't like to be remembered."
I hesitated.
"What was sealed?"
"Regret."
Her eyes lingered on the well.
"The kind that doesn't die with the body. The kind that festers."
I decided to leave the well for now since it is better to gather some information rather than going in blind.
Who knows what could be down here? I don't like risking the possibility of death.
After a total of four nights.
I couldn't ignore it anymore.
The dream, the voice from the well, the whispers in a place no one should know.
And the camp's silence about it.
They walked around the well. Never near. No one cleaned it. No one dared to look down.
So I asked.
The first few people didn't answer.
One man spat and walked away.
A girl muttered, "Best not stir it."
An old trader looked me in the eye and whispered, "If you heard something, keep it to yourself."
But someone must've spoken behind my back, because that evening, as I passed the drying racks near the outer tents, a boy—barely older than me—approached.
"You're the one asking about the well?"
I nodded.
He motioned with his head. "Follow me. There's someone who might talk to you. If she decides not to gut you first."
We stopped at a large tent near the foot of a crooked hill, where thick tapestries covered the entrance. Strange symbols were stitched into them—runes, maps, fragments of language.
Inside, the tent was dim but warm, lit by blue-glass lanterns and stacked high with scrolls, faded books, and wooden tablets.
Sitting cross-legged on a rug was a woman—late thirties, sharp eyes, with silver streaks in her braided black hair.
She looked up as we entered.
"Another ghost-chaser?" she asked flatly.
"He's not from around here," the boy said. "Not even close."
She narrowed her gaze at me.
"What's your name?"
"Ezekiel."
"Hmph. That's not Aetherian. Not from the northern cities either."
"I'm not from this world."
She didn't laugh.
"I'm Callis," she said. "Last surviving linguist of Verndel College. Or what's left of it."
"What happened?" I asked.
She nodded.
"The north burned five winters ago. My students either picked up swords or were picked off the streets. I fled south with my texts and memory."
"Do you know anything about the well?"
At that, her face changed.
She gestured for the boy to leave. He hesitated, then obeyed.
She turned to me.
"That well is old magic," she said. "Older than Aetherian borders. Older than written laws. When this region was taken by force, the conquerors didn't just kill—they tried to erase. To cleanse memory itself."
"So they sealed the pain?"
"No."
She leaned forward.
"They buried it. And named it sacred."
"Sacred?"
"To keep people away."
"But something's still there."
She went silent for a moment.
Then pulled a cloth aside, revealing a thin stone tablet. Etched into it were the same glowing marks I'd seen on the basin near the statue.
"You saw it, didn't you?"
My mouth went dry.
"A woman," I said. "Spirit-like. Spoke in a language I didn't understand… until I did."
Callis's face went pale.
"Then you've already been marked."
"Marked for what?"
She shook her head.
"I don't know. But if she spoke to you, and you heard her near the well, then it means she remembers. And if memory is stirring again…"
She trailed off.
"You might be the reason it wakes."
"Why though?" I asked.
Callis stood up slowly, her robes brushing the floor as she crossed the room. She ran her fingers along the spines of old books stacked in a crooked wooden cabinet.
"You said you're not from this world, right?" she said, pulling a thick, dust-coated volume free.
"Yeah," I answered. "You believed that too easily."
"Most wouldn't," she said, flipping through the brittle pages. "But I've studied enough impossibilities to know the world doesn't run on belief. It runs on consequences."
I watched her closely. "So what does that mean?"
She stopped on a page and turned it toward the lantern light.
"It means if you truly don't belong here, then something ancient—something bound to the Pale March—must've noticed."
"The spirit?"
Callis nodded slowly.
"Whatever lies sealed beneath that well has existed in silence for generations. And silence doesn't like being broken. You, Ezekiel... you're an anomaly. A thread that wasn't supposed to be woven into this place."
She closed the book with a soft thud.
"And whatever watches from the well is likely wondering... why you're here at all."
"What else do you know?" she asked me again, voice quieter now.
"Any visions? Sightings? Strange feelings?"
I hesitated, then nodded.
"I first saw her… the spirit… when I arrived. Near a pool. It was deep in the forest, not far from where I fell in."
Callis raised an eyebrow, pausing her page flipping.
"Then she likely noticed you before you ever arrived."
"What does that mean?"
"Some spirits don't wait to be found. They reach through—across space, sometimes time—especially if they're bound to memory, or pain."
I shifted uncomfortably.
"Later that night, I had a dream. It showed me the Pale March. Just like the merchant described, but… worse. I saw it happen."
"And the spirit?"
"She was there. She spoke to me… for the first time, I understood her."
Callis's gaze sharpened, but she said nothing yet.
"At the end," I added, "I heard something else. A baby crying."
That made her pause. Really pause.
For the first time since I met her, she looked uncertain.
"Then I don't think she means to harm you," she said at last.
"Why not?"
"Most spirits—especially the old ones—don't attack without cause. They feel intent. Hostility. Curiosity. Guilt. If you approached her without malice, she wouldn't lash out."
"And the baby?" I asked.
She exhaled through her nose.
"An echo. An apparition, most likely. Residual sorrow."
"So it's harmless?"
"Physically? Probably. But sorrow doesn't disappear. It festers. It finds shape. Sometimes, it just wants to be heard."
She looked at me again, a little softer now.
"A ghost baby may not hurt you, Ezekiel. But don't assume that makes it innocent."
She turned back to her book.
"War leaves behind more than bodies."