Ziria sat cross-legged on the wooden floor, the cursed book open in front of her, its pages sprawled like a wound refusing to close. Around her, the air was thick with the smell of old parchment, ink, and something else—something metallic and acrid, like blood left too long in the sun. She had been searching for hours. Not even realizing the time passing. Her hands trembled as she sifted through the chaos of her makeshift library, her movements frantic and disjointed, throwing the books when she couldn't find what she needed. Books lay in disarray, piled high like tilted gravestones, their spines broken in her desperation to find the truth.

  She traced the lines of an ancient tale scrawled in almost faded ink that looked black but shimmered faintly with red under the flickering candlelight. The words tell of a shadowed man, a creature shifting between life and death, its purpose as hollow as the void it commanded, a figure of nothingness and everything, empty and full. It gave gifts, it said. Gifts laced with promises and lies of power and immortality, luring the weakest of minds—but his gifts always came with a price. The price of a life, and a soul.

  Her mind spun, replaying the shadow’s voice from the night before. “You are like him… torn between the worlds of the living and the dead.”

  The boy. His silhouette haunted her mind. She could still hear his voice speaking in riddles, a low hum of despair threaded with a madness he couldn’t shake. Its voice echoed around and around. Two voices split in two, like one of a soul and one of a empty shell of a being. He wasn’t just a victim—he was something more. He was the shadow’s creation. His presence lured around her, in the shadows of the room, watching as she kept on reading.

  Her fingers brushed at the edge of a passage she hadn’t seen before, a forgotten detail buried beneath layers of myths and warnings. It spoke of a gift— but not a gift at all, but a sickness. A parasite of the soul. The shadow didn’t give it out of charity or kindness. He gave it to bind, to control and making the victims bow at its feet. The boy’s heart wasn’t his own to keep anymore, it belonged to the shadows, twisting his existence into something that wasn’t quite life and wasn’t quite death. A cruel fate.

  Ziria swallowed hard, her throat dryer than ever before. “Why?” she whispered into the room, her voice cracking in the silence. “Why would he do this? He was just a little boy”.

  The question hung in the air, unanswered. The book remained stubbornly mute, as if she had expected an answer from it.

  She leaned back, exhaustion pressing on her like a bag of heavy stones. Her head throbbed, pulsating so hard she winced, her eyes burning from hours of reading. But her thoughts wouldn’t stop racing. The shadow man didn’t just want control and power. He wanted something else—something deeper, She just couldn’t figure it out.

  What if he doesn’t want me to stop him?

  A sharp knock on her door shattered the quiet, making her flinch. her head spun with pain. She hesitated, her heart thundering in her chest. Another knock, louder this time.

  When she opened the door, a hunched figure stood before her, their face obscured by the hood of a cloak. They didn’t look up at first, not showing their face, their hands wringing together in a nervous, repetitive motion.

  This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  “My sister,” they said, their voice trembling just above a whisper. “She passed in the deepest of night. No warnings, no signs. Please, please I beg, I need to know… was it natural? Or…? Is it the darkness?”

  The question trailed off as they spoke, leaving a hollow space between them.

  Ziria felt her stomach churn, twisting with the questions asked. This was the third visitor today with the same story “another sudden death, another unanswered question”. The village was unraveling, thread by thread, peace by peace, and the dread she felt earlier had only grown, people were dying and she had something to do with it.

  “I’ll… I’ll see what I can do,” she murmured, her voice barely audible. She couldn't look at them as she spoke, shame coating her throat.

  The figure nodded, their cloak moving with the wind as they shuffled away into the darkness without another word.

  Ziria closed the door, her breath shallow. The weight of their grief lingered in the room like a phantom, Shadows only seemed to grow closer.. She leaned against the wood, her mind racing. What have I done?

  Her eyes fell to the cursed book again, its presence an oppressive force making her heart clench with pain. The shadows around it seemed to writhe, stretching toward her like reaching skeleton hands. She clenched her fists, making her knuckles turn white, anger bubbling beneath her fear.

  “This has to end,” she muttered. She stomped around in her room, frustration growing inside her. She had made the first summoning as a request from a client, not to stir up the darkness and invite the darkest of shadows.

  But how can this end?

  Her thoughts drifted away to the boy, now a man, hiding in the deepest parts of the woods. The dream had shown her his despair and isolation. If he was still out there, still alive in some form, living or dead, she had to find him. He was the key, the key to unravel the truth.

  But she couldn’t do it alone.

  Ziria’s eyes flicked to a dusty tome shoved against the back of her shelf, it had been covered with books for so long that she almost forgot it was there. She hadn’t touched it in years, its contents too dangerous to speak of, too volatile to comprehend. It was a guide to summoning, not the dead, but the undying. The ones who existed beyond the veil, spirits tethered to the realm of the living by their own refusal to move on. The ones who always waited on the other side, close to the surface.

  She hesitated at first, her fingers hovering over the spine. “Has it really come to this?” She thought. To summon one of them was to invite complete chaos, to risk her own soul. But what choice did she have now? She already was in too deep.

  With trembling hands, she pulled the book free and opened it to a page marked with a crimson red, frayed ribbon. The ritual was simple but costly—she would need blood, her own, to draw the circle. Not like the one in the graveyard that only needed one drop in the center. This was completely made from her. And she would need to call their name.

  Her mind raced. She didn’t know who to summon at first, but the shadows in the room seemed to pulse, guiding her thoughts. There was someone—a name whispered in the folds of her mind, tied to all of her darkness.

  She bit her lip, drawing a line of blood in her hand, and let it drip onto the floor. As she traced the circle, the air grew colder around her, the shadows deepening until the room was completely consumed by darkness.

  She spoke a name that came to her, not hearing it herself. The words steady despite the fear clawing at her throat.

  The air shifted around her, heavy and electric. And then it came, the sound of heavy footsteps, slow and deliberate, echoing through the room.

  A figure emerged from the shadows, tall and shrouded in an otherworldly glow. Their face was indistinct, shifting like smoke, but their eyes burned with an intensity that made Ziria’s breath catch. Its body wasn't hollow like the shadows, this was more complete.

  “You dare call me?” the figure said, their voice low and familiar.

  Ziria swallowed, forcing herself to meet their eyes. “I need your help,” she said. “I need to know how to stop the shadow that has set their mark on me.”

  The figure tilted their head, a slow and deliberate motion. “The shadow cannot be stopped, my child,” they said. “Not entirely, but perhaps… it can be outwitted.”

  A light sparked in Ziria’s chest, but it was quickly extinguished by

  the figure’s next words.

  “If you’re willing to pay the price