Location: Schwarzwald (Black Forest), Germany
Character POV: Dr. Elara Voss
The wind sighed like an old ghost through the trees.
Dr. Elara Voss stood at the edge of the excavation pit, her boots sinking slightly into the damp, moss-covered ground. The Black Forest loomed around her, thick with shadows even in the pale daylight. For three weeks, she and her university team had dug through layers of forgotten soil, chasing legends most dismissed as fairy tales.
She never believed in fairy tales. Not until today.
"Professor Voss?" called a young voice behind her.
She turned. Lukas, her research assistant, pale and wide-eyed, clutched a half-cleaned relic in trembling hands.
"You need to see this," he said, voice cracking.
Elara took the object from him gently. It was a small stone tablet, no larger than a book cover, covered in runes—twisting, spiraling symbols that shifted when she tried to focus on them. Her breath caught. She recognized nothing, and she knew dozens of ancient languages.
"Where did you find it?"
"In a… in a sealed chamber. The vault," Lukas whispered. "It opened on its own."
Elara frowned. They hadn't reached any lower chambers yet, and no seismic activity had been recorded. She glanced toward the pit.
There, at the bottom, a dark gash had appeared in the earth—like a wound that hadn't been there yesterday. Around it, the air shimmered faintly, like heat rising from asphalt. But the temperature here was nearly freezing.
"Elara," Lukas said. "There's something inside it."
They descended together, flashlights cutting through the gloom. The opening gaped before them, the stone edges etched with more of the incomprehensible script. The moment Elara stepped closer, her flashlight flickered.
Something whispered.
It wasn't wind. It wasn't Lukas. It came from inside the vault — faint, dissonant, yet impossibly familiar. A voice that seemed to know her.
"Elara…"
She froze. Her flashlight went dead. Total darkness swallowed them.
"Lukas?"
Silence.
Then a wet, slithering sound—followed by a scream that choked off into nothing.
Elara reached for Lukas in the dark, her fingers brushing stone… and something else. Something cold. Something that moved.
She didn't scream. Not yet. But something inside her cracked.
The vault had opened, and the forest would never be quiet again.