The village never slept this early.
Not in spring, when the air was soft and clean, and the fields murmured with young crops.
But tonight, windows shut before the sun had fully set. Doors barred. Lanterns dimmed behind cloth.
He felt it the moment he stepped outside. A pressure so deep it seemed to flatten the world around him.
He kept his sister close as he walked her home from the well. She held the bucket with both hands, knuckles pale at the grip.
"Alaric, is it still here?" she whispered.
"Yes."
There was no comfort in falsehood.
He placed his hand over her shoulder, guiding her along the narrow dirt path. Every house they passed bore the same fearful quiet.
Even the livestock pens were silent. Animals sensed danger long before people did.
When they reached the house, their mother rushed forward and pulled the girl inside, eyes flicking between him and the treeline behind him.
"You shouldn't stay out," she said. "Not tonight."
"I know."
But his gaze stayed fixed on the forest while he stepped into the house. The trees were still—wrongly still. Their shadows clung to the roots like damp cloth.
'Something is waiting.'
***
Dinner came and went without taste.
He sat in silence while his parents discussed whether the elder's warning should be followed by sending scouts in the morning.
His sister ate just two spoons of porridge before pushing the bowl away, lower lip trembling.
When darkness finally swallowed the sky, he rose.
"I'll check outside," he said.
His father stood too quickly. "No. We stay together."
He shook his head once. "It's fine, I'll be quick."
His father wanted to object, but the words died in his throat. Eventually, he sat back down, jaw clenched.
His sister watched him with wide, fearful eyes.
"Come back soon," she whispered.
He touched the top of her head gently. "I will."
Then he stepped outside.
There was no wind. No insects. Not even the crackle of old branches.
He walked down the main path, each step deliberate. The moonlight was thin, caught behind drifting clouds, leaving houses half-drowned in darkness.
And there—
at the far end of the square—
a figure stood.
A man, tall, spine unnervingly straight, head tilted slightly as if listening to something only he could hear. His clothes were plain, but a mark burned faintly across his chest: the same symbol carved into the corpse.
'A cult?' Alaric couldn't help but think.
The man lifted his chin when he saw him.
As if recognizing him.
"You," the stranger said, voice empty of all tones. "I saw you before."
He froze.
More figures emerged behind the man. From alleyways, from behind homes, from the curve of the well. A dozen, more than a dozen. All of them marked, all in silence.
All staring at him.
"How did you—" he began.
A soft whistle cut through the air.
The cultist raised his hand—only slightly—and the others moved.
They ran toward the houses.
His blood turned cold.
"NO!"
He sprinted back toward his home, heart hammering in a controlled rhythm a step away from panic. His body knew this sensation. The Backrooms had carved reflex into him like stone.
He crashed through the door.
His father had already armed himself with the old hunting spear that leaned against the wall. His mother held his sister tightly, half-hidden behind the table.
"What's happening?" his mother asked.
"They're here," Alaric said. "All of them."
Before she could respond, a scream tore through the night—from the neighbor's home.
Then another.
His mother covered his sister's ears. His father staggered back a step, breathing hard.
"Get to the back," he ordered, pushing them toward the storage room. "Take her. Protect her."
Without hesitation, Alaric obeyed.
The doorframe shook.
Someone outside slammed into it, hard enough to rattle the hinges.
His mother sobbed. His sister clung to him.
He dragged the storage cabinet aside and opened the back crawl door, barely wide enough for a child. Their mother slipped through first, pulling the girl after her.
Just as he turned back to help his father—
The front door split inward.
A cultist forced his way in, eyes glazed, mouth curved into a slack, unnatural smile. Another followed. Then a third. All of them bearing the carved mark.
His father planted his feet, gripping the spear.
The cultist lunged.
Alaric's father met him with the spear, driving the blade into the man's chest. The cultist didn't scream. He only exhaled softly, before collapsing.
Another stepped over the body.
His father swung again, but the second attacker caught the spear haft and wrenched it aside with inhuman strength.
There was no choice.
Alaric ran towards them.
His body moved with a clarity established by decades spent surviving impossible places. He stepped into the second cultist's space, pivoted, and drove his elbow into the man's throat. With a sickening crunch, the man fell.
But the third was already on him.
A rough hand grabbed the back of his shirt and flung him across the room. His shoulder slammed into the wall, pain flaring bright.
He pushed himself up instantly.
His father didn't get the chance.
A cultist seized him by the jaw and slammed his head into the table. Once. Twice. Thrice. The wood broke under the impact.
"FATHER!" he shouted.
The man slumped, motionless.
He felt something inside him tear. Something old, something strange that had somehow endured until now.
The cultist turned toward him.
This time, he did not retreat.
He stepped forward.
The cultist moved first.
He swung with the blunt force of a man without a pain response. No hesitation, and no restraint. Alaric ducked under the arm, hooked his heel behind the man's leg, and drove his forearm into the cultist's ribs.
Something cracked.
But the man did not fall.
A hand clamped around Alaric's throat.
His feet left the ground.
The pressure built quickly. Dots crowded the edges of his vision. His fingers dug into the man's wrist, trying to pry himself free, but the grip only tightened.
Then his mother screamed from the crawl space.
"AL—!"
A shadow moved beyond the doorway.
More footsteps approached.
He wouldn't reach them in time.
He wouldn't keep them safe like this.
He let go of the wrist.
He twisted, and instead of pulling back, he forced his entire weight forward. His heel struck the cultist's knee from the side, a sharp, driven stomp that sent the joint bending in the wrong direction.
The man collapsed with a strangled hiss.
Alaric landed beside him, coughing violently, his throat burning.
But he didn't wait. He struck the cultist twice—once across the temple, once across the jaw—each hit was measured.
The man went still.
Three more cultists stepped into the broken doorway, each one marked, each one smiling in a crazed hysteria.
Alaric reached for the fallen spear.
His fingers brushed the wood—
And the floorboards creaked.
The sensation beneath him shifted, warped, and buckled in a pattern that was unmistakably familiar.
Pressure.
The same pressure from the forest.
The same energy that had followed him for days.
A presence entered the home long before the figure did.
The cultists stiffened, faces lifting toward the ceiling as though listening for something.
Then they parted.
A woman stepped through the threshold.
She was neither tall nor short. Her posture was straight, composed, hands folded behind her back. Her hair draped over her shoulders like an unmoving curtain. Her eyes were a deep dark, entirely unreflective—resting briefly on the three corpses at her feet.
Then on him.
"You caused this," she said, voice flat but not unkind. "They were meant to bring your family intact."
Alaric rose slowly, spear in hand.
"What are you?"
"A Cantor," she answered, as though naming a profession rather than a title.
Her gaze drifted toward the crawl space door.
His pulse sharpened.
"You won't touch them."
She tilted her head. The gesture was mild, thoughtful.
His hand tightened around the spear.
She stepped closer.
The pressure in the room deepened even more still. His knees nearly buckled under it—from the force that pressed against the edges of his awareness, something beyond his current understanding.
She murmured something incoherent, studying him the way one might inspect a rare mineral. "Your presence is… wrong. You reek of death."
Her eyes narrowed.
"How many times have you died?"
His body flinched in a way he hadn't intended.
The Cantor smiled faintly, with a scholar's fascination.
"Ah," she breathed. "A boy blessed by something beyond my hymn."
Her fingers lifted.
The cultists moved.
Alaric lunged first.
The spear met the nearest attacker's throat, pushing through flesh in a single violent thrust. He pivoted, withdrew, and struck low, carving under a second cultist's knee.
Movement was pure instinct now, drilled into his very being through decades of dying and surviving without rest.
But there were too many.
And the Cantor watched all of it without blinking.
One cultist seized his arm. He tore free, but another caught him from the side, slamming him into the wall. Wood cracked around him.
Then a thin scream pierced the room.
Not his.
His sister.
She had squeezed back into the open, panicked and reaching for him with trembling hands before their mother dragged her away again.
Alaric's vision tunneled.
He shoved forward with everything he had. Elbow, shoulder, and knee. Every angle of force meant to break the grip holding him down.
Bone cracked. Blood sprayed. He tore himself loose and hurled the spear at the cultist nearest the crawl space.
The spear buried itself through the man's spine.
The girl's scream cut off into a gasp.
He ran for her.
A cultist intercepted him, arms locking around his torso, crushing inward like steel bands. His ribs groaned.
Another forced his head downward, pushing his face toward the splintered floorboards.
His sister reached out one last time, eyes wide and wet.
"Brother—!"
He could barely breathe.
Pressure built at the base of his skull. It was a cold echo of the Backrooms creeping along his spine. His vision blurred. The world dimmed around the edges.
Not yet.
He had to reach her.
He had to—
The Cantor raised her hand.
"Enough."
A wave swept the room.
It was silent in sound but deafening in force. Every cultist froze mid-motion—everybody except him, though the force drove him to his knees.
The Cantor stepped over the corpses and debris, approaching him with measured steps.
"You killed one," she said, glancing at the spear lodged in her follower's back. "Impressive for someone untrained in nen."
'...nen?' he thought, barely recognizing the word in the moment.
Her gaze slid to his sister's terrified face. His mother held the girl back with shaking arms.
Then the Cantor made her decision.
"Take them," she ordered.
Four cultists broke formation and advanced toward the crawl space.
Alaric lunged even as he fell. His body had nothing left to give, but he moved anyway, dragging himself across the broken floor.
One cultist kicked him in the ribs. Something tore inside him. The breath left his lungs in a wet choke.
He reached for the man's ankle.
His fingers brushed skin.
Another kick struck his jaw, snapping his head sideways.
He tasted iron.
His sister screamed again. Her voice was raw, helpless, and horrified.
His vision darkened at the edges.
No.
He forced his arm forward.
No—
Not her.
Not after everything.
He lifted his head.
The Cantor's shadow fell across him.
"Rest," she said gently. "Your body is finished."
His vision collapsed inward.
He fell beside the broken table, breath fading, hearing only the sound of his sister's voice—calling for him—growing smaller and farther—
Until it was gone.
And the world broke with it.
Darkness swallowed everything whole.
He died for the fourth time.