— Ghost Road at Night —
We'd been winding along the mountain road for some time when Selene suddenly gasped and wrenched the wheel.
"What is it?" I asked as the tires shrieked and the Jeep skidded to a halt.
Her face had drained of color. She stared out the windshield, frozen.
"There was someone... an old woman standing in the road. She waved at me."
"A person?" I leaned forward to look. "What did she look like?"
"I couldn't see her face. She was holding a child's hand, with a basket in the other. Right in the middle of the road... didn't you see her?"
"It's alright." I reached over and squeezed her hand, steadying her before shifting my attention to our surroundings.
The road cut through a narrow pass between two steep slopes. Dark strands of something that wasn't quite fog drifted between the ridges, and a pale, silvery haze clung to the edges of the asphalt.
"I see. Clara, pass me one of the offerings."
Clara let out a soft sound of acknowledgment and fumbled through her pack, handing me a small bundle of trinkets—wooden tokens, a wrapped candy, and a few simple charms we carried for rituals like this.
I closed my eyes, focused my intent, and brushed my breath across them.
A faint shimmer bloomed over the small items, as if they were briefly catching fire from another world.
I placed the glowing offerings on the road's edge and nudged them forward with my boot.
Both Selene and Clara stared at me.
"Rhan, how did you do that?" Selene whispered. "Was that... a trick?"
"I've seen street performers use fuel to breathe fire," Clara murmured. "But you didn't use anything."
"It's not a trick," I said. "It's intent, shaped by training."
"Like that 'inner energy' people talk about in martial arts movies?" Selene asked.
"Close enough."
"So you really can do things like this?" she asked, half in disbelief.
I didn't answer. I was watching the roadside.
In the faint glow of the offerings, two shapes slowly took form—
an old woman clutching a basket, and a small child holding her hand.
They crouched by the trinkets, gathering them with careful, deliberate movements, examining each small gift as if counting coins. Then they looked up, noticed us, and waved.
"We can go now," I said quietly.
The engine rumbled back to life. Silence settled inside the car.
After a while, Selene frowned.
"The road feels... different. Clara, aren't we close to your village? Did they fix the road recently?"
Clara shook her head. "No. The last time I came back, it was full of potholes. But now... it's smooth. Almost like a highway."
"Rhan," Selene said slowly, "did we take a wrong turn?"
"No," I replied. "We're just not on a road meant for the living. This is a ghost road."
"A ghost road?" they echoed.
I glanced toward Clara. "Those two mountains we passed—are they burial grounds?"
She looked out the window. "Yes. Several villages bury their dead there. The road runs right between them."
"That explains it. The darkness between the slopes is residual death-energy. The pale glow along the road is a boundary. This isn't a path for people—it's a passage used by spirits."
I gave Selene's hand a reassuring squeeze.
"The woman you saw collects passage offerings. The little gifts I left were the toll. We're allowed through."
They both looked completely lost.
"Tolls?" Clara blinked. "So the spirit world has toll roads too?"
"More or less. This road belongs to the living by day, and to the dead by night. If you cross without permission, things get... unpleasant. Getting turned around in endless loops is the mildest outcome."
Both of them were hanging on every word.
"What if we just turned around and left?" Selene asked.
"If you don't trespass on their path, they usually won't bother you. At worst, a petty spirit might make you sick for a few days."
"So if this happens again, we just leave some offerings?" Selene asked.
"Not always. Spirits block roads for different reasons. Some don't care about gifts at all."
I paused. "The safest choice is to avoid roads like this at night."
"Rhan!" Clara suddenly leaned forward from the back seat, eyes bright.
"Can you teach me how to tell normal roads from ghost roads? Then I could take ghost roads at night and skip highway tolls!"
For a moment, I had no words.
People avoided these places like the plague. She wanted to use them to save money.
"Think about it," she said eagerly. "Tolls are expensive! A couple of small offerings and I get a free road. That's efficient!"
I closed my eyes and exhaled. "...No."
That ended that line of thought.
Soon the road forked. Selene slowed.
"Which way?"
I pointed left. "That one. Time to leave their road."
The Jeep turned, and the smooth surface vanished at once, replaced by the familiar jarring unevenness of a mountain track.
"We're really out," Selene said, relief flooding her voice.
"Hey," Clara said suddenly, her thoughts jumping again.
"That road on the right back there... where does it go?"
"Probably toward the Underworld," I said casually.
"The Underworld? You mean it actually leads to the afterlife?"
"Most likely. I've never taken it. But that's what it felt like."
---
— The Anomalous Village —
"Look! There's a village up ahead!" Selene's call cut through our conversation.
In the darkness, a few scattered points of light flickered, faintly outlining the shapes of buildings.
The village entrance lay just ahead.
"This is it," Clara said softly. "My hometown. Restvale."
Selene brought the Jeep to a stop and looked at me. "Rhan? Do we keep going?"
I studied the village. In the faint glow, the wooden houses stood in vague silhouettes, radiating a silent, creeping chill. The residual energy here wasn't dense, but it was palpable.
Mountains encircled us. The night was too deep to make out the lay of the land.
I checked the time: 10 PM. Two hours until the midnight shift between light and dark energies, yet the death-essence was already gathering. That meant something was here.
"Rhan, what do we do? Go in, or wait?" Clara's voice trembled. Even though this was her home, facing such a place in the dead of night was enough to unnerve anyone.
I didn't answer. I pushed the door open and stepped out.
It wasn't that I was being cryptic—I was unsettled myself. This was my first time handling a situation like this.
"Rhan!" Selene couldn't bear to stay in the car alone. She scrambled out after me, pressing close to my side.
Clara got out too, clinging to my other arm.
"It's alright," I said quietly. "I'm just checking the local energy flow. Trying to gauge the balance here."
"What's that?!" Selene suddenly stiffened, pressing her whole body against my back.
The headlights were still on. Following her pointing finger, I saw a figure about a hundred meters away—a woman dressed entirely in white.
Clara shrieked and grabbed my arm. Now I had one girl clinging to each side.
"Get back in the car," I said, no time for explanation.
They scrambled back inside, both refusing the front seat, huddling together in the back.
"Is that a ghost?" Selene's voice shook. "Why isn't she leaving?"
The woman in white remained at the edge of the headlight's glow, watching us in perfect stillness. A silent warning.
"It's a spirit," I said. No point hiding it now.
"What does she want? Why is she just standing there?"
"I don't know. Don't look at her. Don't think about her. Wait for midnight. At twelve, we go in."
I looked back at the spirit.
She moved.
Not walking—drifting. Floating toward us.
"She's coming! She's coming!" the two in the back cried out.
My own pulse quickened. I immediately drew the Lumin & Umbra Sigil from my pocket. If she came any closer, I'd disperse her.
She stopped abruptly about twenty meters away.
The headlights lit her face—paper-white. Long hair obscured her features, but I could feel the hatred in her gaze.
Was she afraid of the Sigil I held?
She didn't advance, but she didn't leave either. She just stood there, locked in a silent standoff with us.
Time stretched in the tension. My palm grew damp around the Sigil.
Finally, the moment of midnight arrived.
The woman in white flickered—and vanished.
"She's gone!" Selene exhaled in relief.
"Hm." I kept my eyes on the village.
Something was wrong.
The residual energy, which should have peaked at midnight, was instead fading.
It should be at its strongest now.
Wait—what was that?
Above the center of the village, a mass of dark energy was silently coalescing.
It hung in the air, slowly rotating, drawing in the surrounding death-essence. After about two minutes, the dark mass suddenly stilled. Then it began to move, spinning away toward the depths of the mountains.
"Let's go. Into the village."
I pulled the car door open, my tone leaving no room for debate.
Selene, though clearly afraid, saw the severity in my expression and immediately slid into the driver's seat, starting the engine.