CHAPTER ONE: The Girl with the Mark
956 Words
Aria’s POV
Three days.
That’s how long it’s been since the mark appeared.
Three days since my skin burned like it was kissed by a dying star.
Since the air around me cracked without thunder. Since the silence changed. Since the sky began to look… haunted.
Since everything changed.
And I haven’t told a soul. Not my aunt. Not even the woods that have always listened. She still believes I fainted. Cold and tired, nothing more. She made me tea, wrapped me in her old wool shawl, and whispered half-forgotten prayers like they could stitch the world back together.
But no amount of warmth, no sacred word, can erase this thing curled beneath my skin.
The mark isn’t fading.
It breathes with me.
Or waits. I’m not sure which is worse.
I’ve memorized every edge of it now. A crescent carved into a perfect circle, delicate lines spinning outward like the dying rays of a sun long gone. When I touch it, it pulses—not painful. Just… there.
Alive.
Like it wants me to remember.
Like it’s trying to make sure I never forget who I was—or what I’m becoming.
And the truth is… I’m terrified.
Not the kind of fear that comes from creaking floors or things tapping at your window.This fear speaks softly. It curls into your lungs and makes a home in your heartbeat.
It whispers,
“You’re not going back to the girl you were.”
And I believe it.
Ashenvale has always been strange.
A town stitched between pine trees and long-forgotten roads, it doesn’t appear on many maps. People pass through and forget its name before they reach the next town. It’s too quiet. Too still.
The kind of place that looks peaceful… but feels like it’s holding its breath.
I grew up with rules here.
Don’t wander too deep into the woods.
Don’t follow the howls.
And never ask about the things that watch from the trees.
My aunt’s house is one of the oldest in town. Peeling paint. Creaking floorboards. A porch that sighs when you step on it.
But it was warm.
Safe.
Once.
Now, even in my bedroom—high above the forest floor—I feel something pressing in. I sit by the window, knees to chest, forehead against cold glass.
The trees stare back. The same trees I’ve known since childhood.
But they’ve changed.
Or maybe I have.
They feel alive now.
Not in the way plants are alive.
But in the way eyes are.
Breathing. Waiting.
“Why me?” I whisper into the glass.
I’m not special.
I’m not chosen.
I’m just… Aria.
Nineteen. Still caught between the ending of high school and the beginning of something that never came. I had plans. College, if we could afford it. A job in the city.
Something normal.
Something far from this place, this forest, this silence.
But I never made it out.
And now, I’m not even sure if I can.
Because something out there is waiting for me.
And worse—I think it knows me.
Downstairs, I hear my aunt humming.
Soft, old melodies she never explains.
She makes tea like she always does when she’s worried.
She doesn’t ask where I go.
She doesn’t stop me.
That’s the rule between us.
We let each other carry our ghosts in peace.
I slip on my jacket, quietly step down the stairs.
“Getting some air,” I call.
She doesn’t answer. She never does.
Maybe she’s afraid of what she’ll hear if she opens the door behind me.
I walk into the chill. The autumn air bites sharper than it should. The sky is overcast, and the trees ripple in the wind like they’ve been holding secrets too long.
The house disappears behind me.
And the forest begins.
I don’t know why I keep coming back here. To the trees. To the dark.
Maybe I think I’ll find answers in the roots.
Maybe I think I’ll find him—the silver-eyed shadow I saw in the vision that came with the mark.
I don’t know if he’s real.
But I feel him.
Like gravity.
Like a half-remembered name in a dream.
The farther I walk, the quieter the world becomes.
Even the birds stop singing.
My mark stirs beneath my collarbone, faintly glowing under my clothes.
I press my hand to it.
What are you trying to show me?
And then—
A whisper.
No words.
Just feeling.
The wind stills. Branches creak.
And something moves.
I freeze.
“Hello?”
My voice is too soft. Too human.
Silence answers. But not emptiness.
Presence.
Something is here.
Watching.
No… approaching.
My heart stumbles.
Branches shift.
A shape darts through the trees.
Large. Dark. Low to the ground. Moving like shadow—fluid, fast.
Not a person.
Not a bear.
Not a wolf.
Not… anything I know.
I stagger back, breath caught, legs locked with fear.
It stops at the edge of the clearing.
Growls. Low. Deep.
Like it’s testing me.
And then—
It vanishes.
Gone.
Like smoke chased by the wind.
I don’t scream.
I should.
But deep inside, I know…
It wasn’t here to harm me.
It was measuring me.
My legs finally remember how to run.
I don’t look back.
I sprint until my lungs ache and the porch light cuts through the trees like a lifeline.
That night, I don’t sleep.
The mark beats like a second heart.
Whatever has awakened in me—
It’s not going to sleep again.
And something in the woods heard it. Felt it. Answered it.
The Blood Moon didn't just brand me.
It summoned something ancient.
And now...
it's coming.
- Writer
