A quiet dread had settled over the village, the kind that didn't arrive with noise, but with absence — no birdsong, no rustling wind, only a weight in the chest that made even breath feel too loud.
Lee-Oh opened his eyes to a sky just beginning to pale, lying on the mat beside Daey-ib in the shared hut. The boy was already awake, sitting with his back against the wall, staring out the slit in the wooden panels. He hadn't spoken all morning. Neither had Lee-Oh. Something in the air warned against it.
Lee-Oh pushed himself up slowly. "Did you sleep?"
Daey-ib shook his head. "The ground feels… strange. As if it's holding its breath."
Lee-Oh rose to his feet and walked out of the hut. The village was quiet — eerily so. The usual clattering from the blacksmith's shed, the chatter of early risers at the communal well — all absent. Even the animals in the pens were still.
He crouched beside the fire pit in front of their hut, picking up a smooth stone and a dry stick. He began sharpening it, not for any real reason, just to do something with his hands. Daey-ib joined him a moment later, placing a hunk of dry bread beside him.
"I don't like it," Daey-ib said.
Lee-Oh nodded. "It's like we're being watched, but by something... beneath us."
Daey-ib didn't laugh at the remark. He just stared at the earth beneath their feet. "Come," he said after a moment. "Let's walk."
They moved past the sleeping homes, past the drying fish racks, toward the tree line where the forest leaned over the village like a wary guardian. That's when Lee-Oh noticed it.
"The trees," he said.
Daey-ib nodded grimly. "They're pulling away from the village."
Lee-Oh knelt beside one, running his hand along the exposed root. It was damp, twitching almost, like a muscle under strain. Something was pushing the roots upward.
And then it happened.
A crack, loud and sudden — like thunder from beneath the earth — echoed from the far side of the village.
Both boys jerked up.
"Did that come from—"
"The old well," Daey-ib finished. "That place was sealed before I was born. No one goes near it."
Smoke began to rise into the early morning sky, thin and grey, curling like a beckoning finger.
They ran.
The village square had begun to stir. Faces peeked from shutters. A few brave villagers had grabbed buckets and tools, hurrying toward the smoke. Lee-Oh and Daey-ib pushed past them, sprinting through dew-wet grass until the old stone well came into view — or rather, what remained of it.
The stone ring had collapsed inward. Charred wood from the covering structure lay splintered in a half-circle. And in the center of the rubble was a scorched hole, belching smoke and... sound.
Lee-Oh heard it first — a whisper, faint but clear, as if a thousand voices murmured from beneath the ground. Not words, not quite — but a tone, a rhythm, a pattern, like something ancient trying to remember how to speak.
He stepped forward, but Daey-ib grabbed his arm. "Don't."
"But someone could be—"
"No one's down there." Daey-ib's voice was steady, low. "That place was sealed because something inside it wanted out."
The villagers formed a wide circle around the wreckage, whispering among themselves. No one stepped closer than the broken edge. Even the bravest didn't cross the threshold of scorched grass.
"Get the elders," someone muttered. "We need the Council."
But Lee-Oh was transfixed. He couldn't take his eyes off the smoke. It wasn't rising naturally. It twisted in loops, like it was... following shapes in the air.
"Daey-ib," he whispered, "do you feel it?"
"Yes."
They both looked at the smoke again — and this time, a face flickered in it. Not detailed, just an impression — a hollow-eyed thing, mouth stretched wide, like it had been screaming for years but no one had heard.
Then it vanished.
Daey-ib's hand gripped Lee-Oh's tighter. "We need to talk to the Head Elder."
Lee-Oh nodded. "Who sealed the well?"
"They won't say. They never have. Only that it's part of the village's curse. They call it the Wound."
The villagers began to murmur again as an elderly woman approached. Her back was stooped, but her presence drew silence.
Elder Myun.
Her eyes — sharp, despite age — scanned the hole.
"This wasn't supposed to happen," she muttered.
Daey-ib stepped forward. "Elder. What was in there?"
Her gaze flicked to him, then to Lee-Oh. Something hardened in her face.
"The village was founded here because of that well," she said. "It gave water during famine. But one day, it... changed. It didn't reflect light. People who looked too long heard voices."
Lee-Oh felt cold sweat on his back.
"And now?" Daey-ib asked.
"Now," she said grimly, "it's awake again." Before anyone could speak, the smoke twisted again — not toward the sky, but toward the crowd.
It reached.
A tendril shot forward, brushing the arm of a young boy — Yuwan, the baker's son.
He screamed — not in pain, but in memory. His eyes rolled back, and he muttered words in a tongue no one had heard in generations.
Lee-Oh stepped forward, eyes wide.
"Daey-ib… he's speaking the same thing the smoke whispered."
And Daey-ib's face turned pale.
Because he understood it.