CHAPTER 6: The Hollow Between Heartbeats
The forest no longer tried to swallow them—it simply watched. Silent. Suspended. As if the trees were holding their breath, as if the whole world had tilted sideways, balancing on the edge of something ancient and waiting.
Caius gripped Aria's hand tighter, fingers like iron and desperation. His voice was low, but every syllable pulsed with urgency.
> "We're almost there."
> "Where?" Aria panted, barely able to keep up. Her boots were caked in moss and mud and raw panic, each step heavier than the last. "Where are we even going?"
> "To someone who might actually explain all this."
The word someone felt like a crack in the sky.
Up until now, it had only been the two of them: a girl with cryptic dreams she couldn't remember fully, and a necklace that glowed like a heartbeat… and a boy with a scar that hadn't always been there. They had been running from monsters that didn't have names, from shadows that learned how to speak.
But someone meant answers.
Someone meant hope.
Someone meant not dying today.
Branches clawed at them as they ran deeper into the forest's ribs. Aria's lungs screamed, her side ached, but her legs didn't dare stop. Even the air was different here—heavy, like it remembered something terrible.
Caius skidded to a stop so suddenly Aria nearly slammed into him. She blinked at what stood before them.
A shack. No… not quite. It was more like a fractured memory trying to impersonate a building. Sagging wood. Ivy tangled like veins. Half-swallowed by the earth itself. It didn't belong here. Not in this forest. Not in this world. It looked like a place you'd dream about once and never find again.
Caius didn't knock.
He just opened the door.
And there she was.
A woman—no, a presence—sat hunched over a bowl of light. Not fire. Not flame. Light, thick and fluid like melted stars. It shimmered in slow spirals, casting no shadows. The room smelled like old parchment, iron, and thunder.
Her eyes were closed, but she spoke before either of them did.
> "The necklace has awakened. So the clock has started."
Her voice sounded like a lullaby sung at a funeral.
Aria froze. The air inside this place was thinner, like truth had replaced oxygen.
> "Clock?" Aria asked, trying to find her voice, which seemed to be hiding behind her ribs. "What clock?"
The woman's lips curved, sad and sharp.
> "Every dream has its deadline," she whispered.
Then she opened her eyes.
And they were not eyes.
They were pure white—no pupil, no iris. Just endless, humming light, like she could see the world not as it was, but as it would be. Or as it used to be.
> "You have seven days before the prophecy swallows you whole."
Aria flinched. Her fingers reached instinctively for the necklace around her throat. It was warm again—too warm.
> "Prophecy?" Her voice cracked. "What prophecy?"
The woman rose slowly, bones creaking like ancient doors.
She stepped closer—not walking, exactly, more like drifting. The room didn't get brighter. It got heavier.
> "You carry a key around your neck, child," she said. "But keys unlock both doors and cages."
Outside, something groaned.
The trees.
Or the forest.
Or maybe something beneath it.
Aria turned, heart pounding in her ears, only to find the doorway behind them was gone. Only walls now. The outside world no longer existed. Just them. Just this woman. Just this moment that didn't feel real.
And then her necklace began to pulse.
Once.
Twice.
Again.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
It sounded like a clock buried under skin.
> "What is this place?" Caius asked finally, his voice steadier than Aria's, but barely.
> "A threshold," the woman answered. "A hinge between what is and what's coming."
Aria stared at her. "And what is coming?"
The woman tilted her head, and for a moment, Aria thought she saw sadness behind that endless light.
> "You already know. You've seen the storm behind your eyes every night since the turning."
The turning.
That word again. It had appeared in her dreams—in whispers, in blood, in shattered reflections.
> "Why us?" she whispered.
The woman reached out a hand—not to touch her, but to feel her.
> "Because fate has favorites. And enemies."
Caius stepped forward. "You said seven days. What happens at the end?"
> "The world forgets you," she said simply.
A silence fell. The light in the bowl began to darken. Not like extinguishing—but folding inward. Like it had heard something it didn't like.
> "You don't have time for all the answers," she said, backing away. "You must decide quickly what kind of key you are. And what door you're meant to open."
Aria wanted to scream. To shake the answers out of this place. But her chest felt full of water and smoke.
Behind her ribs, the necklace pulsed again.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
And suddenly, she remembered something from one of the dreams: a shadow with her face, standing in fire, whispering one sentence over and over.
> "There are worse things than dying."
The woman turned to the flame one last time.
> "When the seventh tick strikes, you must be ready to bleed or run."
Then the shack groaned.
And the forest moved.
Not just the trees. The ground. The air. The sky.