When Shadows Wake
My name's Ethan Cole, and if you asked me a year ago what the weirdest thing in Ridge Valley was, I'd probably say the gas station clerk who still listens to cassette tapes.
Now… I'd say the shadows.
But back then, life was normal. Simple.
Ridge Valley was one of those small mountain towns that looked peaceful on the outside — quiet streets, pine trees crowding the skyline, and a lake that looked beautiful in pictures but smelled like rust up close. Everyone knew everyone. The kind of place where people waved even if they didn't like you.
I lived on the east side of town, near the old rail tracks that hadn't been used in years. Our high school sat right at the center — Ridge Valley High — where the biggest drama was whether the vending machines would ever get restocked.
That summer, we were assigned a research project for extra credit — something about studying local geography and natural formations. Sounded boring, but we figured we could turn it into a reason to hang out before senior year kicked in.
That's where my friends came in.
Emma was the smart one — always curious, always the first to look deeper into anything that didn't make sense. She wanted to be a journalist someday.
Jake was the loud one — a football guy with more confidence than sense, but loyal to the bone.
Sarah was quiet, careful. She noticed everything, even the things you tried to hide.
And Tyler, my best friend since middle school — the kind of guy who laughed in the face of fear just to see if it laughed back.
We'd all grown up together, in and around the same streets and woods. We thought we knew Ridge Valley like the back of our hands. We thought nothing could surprise us anymore.
We were wrong.
It started on a Friday evening in late June — the air was warm, the sky a hazy orange, and the forest just beyond town looked like it was holding its breath. We were driving back from a field trip, half-asleep and half-laughing, when we saw it.
A light.
Huge, bright, and fast — cutting across the sky like a falling star, but too close, too real. It vanished behind the ridge with a flash that made the horizon look like it was on fire.
Everyone saw it.
And that's when everything changed.
By the time we got there, the place was already blocked off — men in dark coats, strange equipment, no one talking. That should've been the end of it, but as we turned to leave, a man stopped us. He looked… wrong somehow. Pale, like he hadn't seen sunlight in years. He handed me an old leather-bound book and said only one thing:
"Curiosity opens more than doors."
Then he walked away.
I didn't know it then, but that was the moment it all began — the moment the line between light and shadow started to break.
The book was more than paper.
And the shadows of Ridge Valley were just starting to wake.