Chapter 12: The Awakening

  The drive back to Shiro’s house was silent. No one spoke as they processed what had just happened. Kenji kept his eyes fixed on the road, his usual carefree demeanor replaced with a tense, nervous energy. Haruto sat with his arms crossed, his gaze distant. Sora, who had been unusually quiet, kept glancing at Shiro as if searching for answers.

  “What do you think it was?” Sora finally asked, breaking the silence. “That… that thing we saw. What did it mean by the seals being broken?”

  Shiro didn’t answer immediately. He felt a cold shiver run down his spine just thinking about it. The figure had seemed so powerful, so ancient. And it had called him the chosen one, as if Shiro was destined to play some part in whatever was happening. But what part?

  “I don’t know,” Shiro said, his voice heavy with uncertainty. “But I have a feeling this is just the beginning. Something’s coming, and I don’t think we’re ready for it.”

  Kenji tightened his grip on the wheel. “I knew we shouldn’t have gone there,” he muttered. “Shrines like that… they’re not abandoned for no reason.”

  Haruto shifted, finally speaking. “That symbol it carved into the ground—it wasn’t random. I’ve seen it before.”

  Shiro turned to him. “Where?”

  Haruto looked uncomfortable. “In one of my grandfather’s books. The ones he never let me touch. He was obsessed with the old gods—things older than the Kami. He said they were bound, sealed beneath layers of silence, waiting for a voice to wake them.”

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  “Are you saying we woke something up?” Sora asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

  “No,” Haruto said, swallowing. “I think it woke him up.”

  The rest of the ride passed in silence, but the tension had shifted—grown heavier. Something had shifted that couldn’t be undone.

  When Shiro got home, the air in the house felt wrong. Still, somehow too still. The lights flickered when he turned them on, just once. He shook it off as coincidence.

  Dinner was quiet. His mother asked how the outing went. He gave vague answers. His father didn’t look up from his phone. Normal. All of it, technically, was normal.

  But as he climbed the stairs to his room, something gnawed at the edges of his mind. That moment when the figure looked at him—really looked at him—like it already knew who he was. Like it had been waiting.

  That night, he unpacked his bag, set his phone to charge, and sat on the edge of his bed.

  He meant to check the shrine photos on his phone again, maybe rewatch the video Kenji had taken. But when he opened the album…

  The folder was empty.

  No images. No videos. Not even corrupted files—just gone.

  Shiro stared at the screen, confusion turning slowly to dread. He tapped back, checked his storage. Everything else was there. Just not the shrine.

  A cold breath slid across the back of his neck.

  He spun around.

  Nothing. Just his room.

  His heart beat faster. His thumb hovered over the power button. Then he forced a weak laugh.

  “Get a grip,” he whispered to himself. “It’s just nerves.”

  But as he reached to turn off the light, he paused.

  On his desk sat his notebook. The one he’d used for class.

  It was open.

  He hadn’t left it that way.

  And scrawled across the page in a jagged, frantic hand—not his—were three words:

  “Awaken the path.”

  He blinked.

  The words were gone.

  The page was blank.