The storm did not relent until dawn. She had not slept. Instead, she sat by her window, watching the relentless sheets of rain until exhaustion dulled her senses. By the time the first pale light of morning crept across the horizon, her eyes were dry and red, her mind circling endlessly around the book on her desk.
Her family awoke to a new day, bustling with their usual rhythm. Her father left early for a scheduled call with investors, her mother instructed the staff about the day's meals, her brother complained about the spotty Wi-Fi caused by the storm. To them, it was nothing but an unusual night of bad weather. To her, it was the confirmation of something far more terrifying: the book had spoken truth.
She forced herself to join them for breakfast, smiling, nodding, responding with half-hearted words. But the moment she excused herself, she climbed back to her room, shut the door, and returned to the desk.
The book waited.
---
She opened it carefully, her pulse quickening. The faint scent of old parchment wafted upward. She flipped past the earlier pages until she reached a section she had not yet examined.
Here, the writing was more fragmented. Short sentences, jagged lines, symbols she could not decipher. Yet interspersed between them were occasional translations, written in faded ink as though someone long ago had tried to interpret:
"When the third bell tolls, the soil shall thirst."
"Beware the thirteenth moon, for its shadow hides the unspoken."
"He who listens to the wind shall know the end before it begins."
Her breath trembled. The words were ominous, vague, and yet they carried the same dreadful weight as the prophecy of the storm. She turned another page.
---
And then she froze.
The entire sheet was filled—no, consumed—by symbols. No translation, no guiding notes, only line upon line of an alphabet not of this world. The letters twisted in ways that hurt her eyes if she stared too long, curves merging with angles, dots that seemed to ripple as though alive.
Her heart raced as she leaned closer. She did not understand a single mark, yet some instinct deep inside whispered that this was important, that this page held meaning unlike the others. She took out her phone and snapped a picture, her hands shaking. The image on the screen unsettled her further: the letters seemed to blur, refusing to stay still even digitally.
Her gaze returned to the book. The script sprawled across the page in neat lines, and as her eyes scanned them, she felt something strange—like a voice murmuring in the back of her mind.
The text read:
ᚱᛟᛉ ᚨᛚᛗᛖᚾ
ᛋᚻᚨᛞᛟᚹ ᚨᛗᛟᚾᚷ
ᚠᚨᛚᛚᛖᚾ ᛟᚠ ᚹᚨᚱᛋ
ᛞᛖᛋᛏᛁᚾᛖᛞ ᚨᛏ ᛏᚻᛖ ᛖᚾᛞ
ᚱᛖᚲᛟᚾᛁᚾᚷ ᚦᛖ ᚾᛖᚹ ᚹᛟᚱᛚᛞ
The symbols pulsed faintly under her gaze. She could not explain it, but she was sure—absolutely sure—that this was not random. It was language. Real, deliberate, alive.
---
She shut the book quickly, heart pounding in her throat. The silence of the room pressed down around her. Outside, the storm had ended, but the sky remained gray, as if the world itself had not fully recovered.
Her phone buzzed with a news alert: "Meteorological anomaly—unexpected rainfall patterns recorded. Experts unable to explain sudden shift." She stared at it, her skin prickling. The prophecy had reached beyond her small world; it had entered reality at large.
Slowly, almost unwillingly, she opened the book again. The same page of symbols glared up at her. She whispered under her breath, "What are you trying to tell me?"
And then—she swore she saw it—one of the symbols glowed faintly. Just for a second. A pale silver shimmer, like moonlight caught on glass. She blinked, rubbed her eyes, but when she looked again, the glow was gone.
Still, the image haunted her.
---
That night, as she lay in bed, she could not sleep. Her mind replayed the shapes of the letters, the unnatural blur on her phone, the faint shimmer. She turned over, pulled the blanket tighter, but the thought gnawed at her:
The book was alive.
And she was no longer just a reader. She was its witness.
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End of Chapter 3
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