𖤓 A whisperer once said, “Your fear may devour you. But it may also be the sharpest weapon you’ll ever hold.” That was before the forest fog took them, slow and silent, swallowed whole by a darkness no voice ever returned from. It happened as the sun fell behind the hills, as the wind turned sharp and brittle, as the storm painted the sky black, and the old clock groaned a single, thunderous tick when its hand struck seven. Would you let your fear feast on you, or would you wield it, and step into the dark armed with its teeth?

ᝰ.ᐟ The sun peeked just above the crown of the old clock, casting a pale light onto the number twelve. Even at the hour of midday, the village remained smothered in that suffocating, unnatural silence. The voices may not echo now, but absence is not safety, they are listening. Remember what the old fairytales warned, “What you cannot see does not mean it isn’t there.” Shadows don’t need to speak to exist. Would you stay hidden within the quiet breath of the house, or step outside and face whatever already sinking its roots beneath?

⚘    ׅ   Crows murmured low above, and long howls, origin unknown, threaded through the dark sky, stitching themselves into the silence. Footsteps, small and unsteady, sank into soil soaked through with rot, the scent of spoiled fruit clinging to the air. “You are walking toward your own end,” some had whispered, as the rusted gates of the old halls groaned open, unbidden, welcoming yet another soul bold or broken enough to tempt fate. The sun had vanished entirely, leaving only ember crackle and shadow. The clock’s hand pointed downward, six. And may whatever soul stepped through those doors, be lucky enough to crawl back out from what waits within.

                         
The cursed land warned with every crow's cry and every brittle breath of wind, urging outsiders not to step foot where so many had already fallen. No soul who entered ever returned, as if the soil itself demanded more blood in exchange for silence. The skies darkəned, the scent of rot grew thick, and time seemed to fracture around the village’s pain. Faint whispers moved through doors left ajar and windows that no longer blinked, watching over a celebration long erased. The plague may have struck first, but something older, more ravenous, had been waiting.
              

Those who call themselves 'Investigators' walk these paths and never return quite the same—if they return at all. Their skin seems to carry questions, their eyes emptied by whatever they’ve seen. Whispers have replaced voices, and the clock only takes more with every tick.

         “It’s not the darkness that gets to you. It’s the way the light bends around things it doesn’t want you to see.”

They keep searching, through ink-stained newsletters, through fragile paper and buried clues, desperate to quiet the madness clawing at their minds. So what exactly breathes beneath all that dust and silence? Something too shattered to survive, or too dangerous to let the words fall?