The temple on the hill, once revered, now lay cloaked in an unsettling silence. Its crimson doors, once open to the heavens, had been sealed shut for decades. Ivy crept like hungry fingers across its stone surface, and the air around it carried the scent of old incense—sweet, but suffocating.
Inside, dust blanketed the floor like fallen ash. The statues of forgotten deities stared blindly into the dark, their once-vibrant paint faded into ghostly hues. A single candle burned on the altar—fresh. Lit recently.
Kane stepped cautiously across the threshold. His boots echoed through the empty chamber as he scanned the interior. "It's not abandoned," he whispered. "Someone's been here. Recently."
Eva followed close behind, her dagger drawn and eyes sharp. "This is the third sealed site we've found, and the third with signs of ritual," she murmured. "Someone's trying to awaken something."
As she moved past the altar, a faint humming grew in the air—like voices, or chanting, but too distorted to understand. Kane reached into his satchel and pulled out the fragment of the burned map they'd discovered two nights prior. "The mark matches," he said. "This temple's one of the points. If we connect all five, it forms the seal pattern."
Eva stared at the floor. Someone had drawn a fresh sigil in chalk—five circles, one at each cardinal point, and a center symbol they couldn't decipher.
"Whoever did this... they're not just exploring ruins. They're performing a rite." Her voice dropped. "A summoning, maybe."
Before Kane could reply, the ground beneath them vibrated. A faint thrum rippled through the stone, and the candle's flame flickered—sideways, as though pulled by a breeze that didn't exist.
Then came the whisper.
It wasn't a voice they could place—not male or female, not old or young. It seeped into their ears like smoke:
"The price is chosen. The gate is weakening."
Eva spun around, her dagger raised. "Did you hear that?"
Kane's face had gone pale. "We need to leave. Now."
But the doors had already closed behind them, without a sound.
Eva rushed forward and pushed—nothing. Kane tried, too, slamming his shoulder into the thick wood.
It didn't move.
Behind them, the candle flared high and turned black at the center, its flame taking the shape of a twisting eye. The sigil on the floor began to glow faintly—blood red.
"We're not alone anymore," Kane said.
From the shadows at the far end of the room, a silhouette began to rise. Not walk, not step—rise. As if pulled up by invisible threads.
It had no face. Only a mask, cracked and worn, like porcelain aged by centuries.
Eva's grip on the dagger tightened. "You take left, I take right?"
Kane nodded. "And if we fail?"
"Then we better fail loud enough for the others to hear."
They moved.
The room, the air, the candle, the mask—everything erupted into chaos.
Outside, high above the cursed temple, the sky split open with a single crimson flash.