The forest had gone still.
Too still.
Elara sat inside her torn tent, wrapped in three jackets and silence. Her fingers clutched the notebook she'd carried since university—thick, weathered, filled with sketches and field notes. But now… it had started writing back.
She flipped through the last dozen pages, heart hammering.
> "He is the Key."
"The Vault was not meant to be opened."
"Do not sleep. He finds you faster when you sleep."
None of it was hers.
The handwriting was close—close enough to trick someone else—but Elara knew her own loops, her own pressure patterns. These words had been etched, not written. Like the pen was being dragged by something with too many fingers and not enough eyes.
And worst of all… each entry was signed.
> EV
Her initials.
But she hadn't signed them.
---
She hadn't eaten in two days. Her satellite phone was dead. The solar charger had vanished with the rest of her team. She tried the emergency radio twice more, speaking in German, then English, then whispers.
No response.
The whisper in her head was back now. Not a voice, exactly, but a presence, brushing her thoughts like wind through graveyard grass.
And then—a flicker.
The tablet. It pulsed once, red veins glowing faintly. She turned to it, half-horrified, half-entranced.
The surface shifted again. This time, it showed… a face.
Blurred. Unrecognizable. Watching her from beneath some impossible depth. It opened its mouth—but instead of sound, her notebook fluttered open by itself.
Words scrawled themselves onto the page:
> Kenji knows. The seal is weakening. Do not run. You will only run deeper.
She slammed the book shut and threw it.
Something moved just outside the tent.
Crunching footsteps. Measured. Bare.
Her breath froze in her chest.
She reached for the machete beside her.
The footsteps stopped.
She waited five seconds… ten… twenty…
Then the tent zipper slowly began to slide down on its own.
zzzzzzzrrrrpppp
Elara lunged, slashing outward with the blade—but there was no one there.
Only wind.
Only shadow.
But on the ground in front of her, something had been left behind.
A folded piece of paper. Yellow. Ancient.
She picked it up.
A photograph.
Her. Standing outside the vault.
And behind her—Kenji Watanabe.
But she'd never met him. Not in person.
Not yet.