The night had grown heavier.
Even though there was no wind, the branches of the sacred banyan tree behind the shrine swayed on their own, creaking with an eerie rhythm that seemed almost...intentional. From where Eliot stood, the shadows cast by the moon looked like long fingers stretching across the ground, crawling toward him slowly.
"I'm telling you," said Tien, his voice low, "we shouldn't have come here tonight. This place—it's not just cursed. It's aware."
"Stop saying things like that," Eliot murmured, his eyes locked on the wooden door of the inner sanctum. "We came for answers."
"Or maybe we're feeding something exactly what it wants," Tien said. He held the old talisman in his hand like a shield, fingers tight enough to turn his knuckles white.
Inside the shrine, the air had turned dense.
They could both feel it—a pressure bearing down on their chests, making it hard to breathe. Eliot stepped forward, slowly, eyes drawn to the old altar covered in dust. It hadn't been touched in years, yet a fresh trail of salt circled the base. Something recent.
"Someone was here before us," Eliot whispered.
Tien scanned the dark corners. "No... someone is still here."
A low groan echoed from behind the altar. They froze. The sound wasn't human—but it wasn't entirely inhuman either. It had pain in it, and something else—resentment.
Then it whispered.
"Give... back... what was taken..."
Eliot reached into his satchel, pulling out the small clay jar they had recovered from the collapsed well earlier. It was sealed with red wax, marked with ancient runes neither of them could read.
"You think this is it?" he asked, holding it out.
Tien nodded, eyes wide. "That jar is the reason the well went dry. The elders said it was cursed—sealed for a reason. Someone buried it deep, and now we just dug it up like idiots."
The whisper came again, closer this time, right behind Eliot's shoulder.
"Return it... or be consumed..."
He turned fast—no one was there. But the chill remained. Suddenly, the jar grew hot in his hands, vibrating faintly. A black mist began seeping from the seams.
Tien grabbed Eliot's arm. "Put it back. Now."
"No," Eliot said, jaw tight. "Not yet. Not until I know what's inside."
Tien looked at him like he was mad. "Are you hearing yourself?! You're tempting something that was locked away before either of us were born!"
Eliot's hands trembled, but he couldn't look away. The jar called to him in a way he couldn't explain, as though his very blood remembered it. A memory not his own surfaced—of a storm, of a child crying, of a figure robed in crimson standing over an altar just like this one.
"Eliot?" Tien's voice broke the trance.
He blinked. The jar had cracked. A line of black sludge oozed down its side and sizzled as it hit the wood floor.
Something was breaking free.
"Okay, that's it," Tien growled, grabbing the jar and hurling it back into the stone pit behind the altar.
The groaning stopped. For a moment, everything was still.
And then—silence shattered.
From the shadows, a shape unfolded. Pale, shifting, and wrong. It wore a mask carved like a fox, but beneath it, dark sockets leaked smoke. Its limbs were too long, jointed like a spider's. It hovered just above the ground, unblinking.
"You should not have returned here..." it whispered, though its mouth never moved.
Tien shoved Eliot behind him and drew out a blade—old, rusted, but inscribed with protective symbols. "Go!" he barked. "Get out now!"
Eliot shook his head. "I'm not leaving you."
"You have to—"
The spirit lunged.
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