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The house didn't feel like theirs anymore.
Shards of glass crunched beneath Cass's shoes as he kicked the kitchen door shut against the storm. The broken window moaned with the wind, rain blowing in through the jagged opening. The bulb overhead flickered, throwing the siblings into a stuttering dance of shadow and light.
Elara sat at the table with the journal hugged to her chest, as though it might be torn from her hands if she loosened her grip. Her pulse had not slowed since the masked figure had shoved her aside. The phantom pressure of that hand still burned against her shoulder.
Cass paced, every step sharp, his body buzzing with frustrated energy. He still clutched the heavy flashlight like a club, knuckles white around the handle.
"They were waiting," he muttered. "Waiting for us to open the box. Like they knew."
Elara looked up at him, her voice thin. "You think they followed us from the cemetery?"
Cass stopped pacing. His jaw flexed. He hadn't shaved that morning, and the shadow of stubble made him look older, harder, more dangerous. "Yeah," he said finally. "I think we've been watched since the funeral."
The words landed heavy between them. Elara felt a shiver creep through her, deeper than the chill of wet clothes or storm-damp air. She tightened her grip on the journal.
The leather was cracked and soot-stained, the faint smell of smoke clinging to it like an accusation. She had seen her father hunched over journals like this a thousand times, scribbling into the night with stacks of books open around him, the lamp burning until morning. But this one felt different. Darker.
Cass finally dropped into the chair opposite her, the flashlight thunking onto the table. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, eyes locked on the book. "All right. If they wanted it, then we need to know why. Open it."
Elara hesitated, her thumb tracing the worn spine. Part of her wanted to keep it shut, to lock it back in the box and pretend none of this had happened. But she forced herself to breathe, to push past the fear pressing against her ribs. She laid the journal flat on the table.
The first page bore her father's familiar handwriting—quick, looping, almost illegible in places. Dates scrawled at the top corners, margins filled with notes and question marks. He had always written like a man racing against time.
Cass leaned close, his voice a low growl. "What's it say?"
Elara read aloud, stumbling over her father's shorthand:
"Latitude unknown… triangulation incomplete… if symbols are translated correctly, then entry lies beneath southern quarter… Veil suspects nothing yet… must move quickly before—"
She broke off. The line ended mid-sentence, the ink blotted as if the pen had been yanked from his hand.
Cass's brow furrowed. "The Veil. He wrote it down. You saw that."
Elara nodded, her stomach flipping. The name the stranger had whispered at the funeral. The name she had overheard in her father's rambling when he thought no one was listening.
She turned the page. Diagrams filled it—crude sketches of arches, stairways, symbols etched into stone. A compass rose in the margin, distorted, its north arrow bent sideways.
"This looks like…" Elara traced a finger over the page. "Architectural notes. Subterranean structures. Maybe catacombs?"
Cass gave a low whistle. "Dad's bedtime stories come back to haunt us."
She ignored the jab. Page after page spilled with the same: coded notations, half-finished sketches, coordinates scratched out and replaced. But then she reached a section where the paper felt thinner.
Several pages had been torn out. Again.
The sight made her throat tighten. She slid her fingers along the ragged edges, the tear marks uneven, hurried.
"Someone took them," she whispered.
Cass leaned back, his chair creaking. "Yeah. The guy tonight, maybe. Or someone before him. Either way, they wanted those pages bad enough to break in."
Elara flipped ahead, her heart sinking further. More notes, but fragmented. Then—a map.
She froze.
Drawn in her father's hasty hand was a partial map of their own city. Streets overlapped with faint lines, some crossed out, others circled. In the lower corner, faint symbols marked like runes she didn't recognize.
Cass leaned in, squinting. "Is that the riverfront?"
"Yes." She pointed to a series of intersecting lines. "But look—the markings don't line up with modern streets. These are older. They're drawn beneath the grid."
Cass frowned. "Beneath?"
Elara nodded slowly. "Like tunnels."
Silence stretched. Outside, thunder rolled like a giant's growl.
Cass leaned back, raking a hand through his hair. "So Dad wasn't just scribbling. He found something. Underground."
"And he hid it in a map," Elara murmured. Her fingertips brushed the symbols, the strange sigils scattered along the edges. Some she vaguely recognized—ancient runes, old languages her father had taught her fragments of. Others were completely foreign.
She tried to sound steady, but her voice shook. "Cass… this is what he died for."
For once, Cass didn't argue. He sat very still, jaw tight, his eyes flicking between the journal and the shattered window.
Then he reached across the table and shut the journal firmly with one hand. "If he died for it, then we'd better figure out what's worth killing for."
Elara opened her mouth to protest, but Cass was already on his feet. He fetched tape and cardboard from the pantry and began covering the broken window. The task was loud, clumsy, but it steadied the air between them.
Elara sat in silence, staring at the closed journal. She remembered the last words her father had spoken to her, weeks before the fire: "Elara, some secrets aren't meant to be buried. They bury themselves in us if we don't set them free."
When Cass returned, he dropped into the chair again, his expression hard. "All right. We need to decode this. Piece by piece."
They spread the journal open once more, laying it flat under the harsh light. Elara leaned close, letting her eyes drink in the lines, the strange language, the scribbled calculations. She reached instinctively for a pencil and paper, beginning to copy the symbols.
Cass watched, restless. "Do you even know what half that means?"
"No," she admitted. "But Dad taught me patterns. Languages overlap. Symbols repeat. If I can find the rhythm, maybe I can read it."
Cass grunted, unconvinced, but didn't stop her. Instead he flipped to the back of the journal. "What about here?"
Elara glanced up. The final pages were stranger still. Entire spreads filled with sketches of a single shape—a stone. Oval, fractured down the center, symbols etched across its surface like veins of light.
Beneath the sketches her father had written a single name over and over:
The Null Stone.
Elara's pulse quickened. The words looked heavy even in ink.
Cass muttered the name under his breath, rolling it like a curse. "Null Stone. What the hell is that?"
Elara shook her head. "I don't know. But if The Veil is after it…" She trailed off. The thought finished itself: it's not just myth.
They sat in silence, the storm rattling the house around them, the journal a dark weight between them.
Finally, Cass stood. His eyes burned with the same reckless determination that had gotten him into a dozen fights, a dozen scrapes. But this time it was sharpened, dangerous.
"We're not hiding, El. If Dad started this, we finish it. Whatever this map leads to, we follow it. We find out the truth."
Elara swallowed hard. The rational part of her screamed no, screamed danger. But another part—the part that had grown up with her father's whispers, his promises of history waiting to be uncovered—felt the pull of it.
The journal seemed to pulse under the light. The map called to her.
She nodded slowly.
But before either could speak again, the phone rang.
Both siblings jumped.
The sound was shrill, jarring in the tense silence. The old landline mounted to the wall rattled with each ring, its cord swaying like a noose.
Cass stepped toward it, cautious, eyes on Elara. She shook her head, fear tightening her chest.
He picked it up anyway.
"Hello?" His voice was sharp, guarded.
Silence.
Then a voice, distorted, whispering through static:
"You shouldn't have opened the box."
Click.
The line went dead.
Cass lowered the receiver slowly, his knuckles white.
Elara stared at him, her heart hammering, the words echoing in her skull.
Some doors, once opened, cannot be closed.
The journal sat open on the table, its map staring back at them, waiting.
And now they knew—they weren't just chasing secrets. They were being hunted.
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