Chapter 3
1848 Words
Impossible
The clinic bathroom smelled faintly of antiseptic and lavender soap.
Elara stood motionless in the center of it, staring at the small plastic test resting on the edge of the sink like it had personally offended her.
Two pink lines.
Clear.
Unmistakable.
Impossible.
“No.”
The word escaped her immediately.
Firm. Certain.
Because there were only two possibilities here: the test was wrong, or reality itself had stopped functioning correctly.
And Elara Voss trusted broken science more than miracles.
She grabbed the pregnancy test again, staring at it harder as though anger alone might rearrange the result into something logical.
Still positive.
A strange ringing filled her ears.
Her pulse suddenly felt too loud inside the tiny bathroom.
“No,” she repeated quieter this time.
The fluorescent light overhead flickered once.
Elara’s stomach dropped.
Not now. Please not now.
She forced her gaze away from the mirror.
That was important.
She had learned something over the last twenty-four hours: looking too long at reflections felt dangerous.
The first time she had noticed it was after waking up in the cabin.
The second was this morning.
The smile.
God.
Her stomach twisted violently again.
Stress.
Everything happening to her could still be explained through stress and trauma and neurological shock.
Except for this.
Pregnancy required facts.
Biology.
Memory.
And Elara remembered enough of her own life to know one thing with absolute certainty: She had not slept with anyone.
Not recently. Not in months.
The realization crashed through her chest again harder this time.
Her breathing became shallow.
Something cold crept beneath her skin.
Not fear.
Violation.
Because if this test was somehow real— then how?
Her mind betrayed her instantly.
The ruins. The Harbinger.
Darkness. Pain. Collapsing stone.
No.
No no no.
Her entire body recoiled from the implication so violently she nearly dropped the test into the sink.
Absolutely not.
The Harbinger had touched her mind.
Her nerves. Her emotions.
But never—
Elara squeezed her eyes shut hard.
Stop. Stop thinking.
The fluorescent light buzzed overhead softly.
The world tilted slightly beneath her feet.
She gripped the sink harder.
Her reflection stared back at her from the mirror.
Pale skin. Dark tired eyes. Fear.
Human fear.
Not the fear of death.
The fear of losing control over reality itself.
A soft knock sounded against the bathroom door.
“Elara?”
Dr. Soren’s voice.
Gentle. Grounding. Human.
Elara swallowed hard before unlocking the door.
He looked up from the clipboard in his hands the second she stepped out.
His gaze dropped briefly toward the test, still clenched tightly between her fingers.
Then back toward her face.
He understood immediately.
Concern softened his features.
“Elara…”
“It’s wrong.”
The words came out too quickly.
Too sharp.
She sounded desperate.
Dr. Soren remained calm.
“False positives can happen occasionally.”
Relief surged through her instantly.
“Yes. Exactly.”
“But rarely.”
The relief died just as fast.
Elara stared at him.
“No.”
He gestured carefully toward his office down the hall.
“Let’s sit first.”
The walk there felt strangely unreal.
Like watching herself move through someone else’s life.
The office smelled like coffee and old books. Rain tapped softly against the windows while muted news footage flickered silently across the small television mounted near the corner ceiling.
Riots again. Smoke. Crowds screaming.
Elara looked away immediately.
Dr. Soren sat across from her quietly.
The pregnancy test rested between them on the desk now like evidence from a crime scene.
“Elara,” he said gently, “I know this is unexpected—”
“Unexpected?” She laughed once.
The sound came out wrong. Thin. Borderline hysterical.
“Doctor, I haven’t slept with anyone.”
The room fell silent.
Dr. Soren’s expression remained careful.
“How certain are you of that?”
The question ignited irritation instantly.
“Very.”
He nodded slowly.
“I need you to understand I’m not accusing you of lying.”
“Good.”
“But memory gaps can happen after severe trauma.”
Elara’s jaw tightened.
The ruins flashed violently behind her eyes again.
The Harbinger standing beneath glowing murals.
Ancient eyes watching her suffer.
Her stomach churned.
“No.”
Dr. Soren leaned forward slightly.
“Elara… is there any possibility you may have experienced assault during this missing week?”
The words hit like ice water.
Everything inside her stopped.
The clinic noises outside disappeared entirely beneath the sudden roaring in her ears.
Assault.
No. No no no.
She searched her memories desperately.
The woods.
The stairs.
The chamber.
Pain.
The collapse.
But nothing else.
No touch.
No hands.
No violation.
Nothing.
Yet uncertainty poisoned the edges of her thoughts anyway.
Because there were seven missing days, she could not explain.
Her fingers curled tightly against the chair arms.
“I don’t remember.”
The admission barely qualified as sound.
Dr. Soren’s expression softened immediately.
“That doesn’t mean something happened.”
But it doesn’t mean something didn’t.
The thought settled heavily inside her chest.
Elara looked down toward her hands.
Tiny crimson droplets bloomed beneath the skin along her knuckles again.
She jerked instantly, pulling her hands beneath the desk before Dr. Soren could notice.
The blood vanished seconds later.
Hallucinations.
Again.
Only now fear mixed with something worse.
Helplessness.
“I need another test,” she whispered.
Dr. Soren nodded immediately.
“We’ll do bloodwork and a sonogram to confirm.”
Elara exhaled shakily.
Good. Science. Evidence. Reality.
Something solid.
Because right now her life felt like a nightmare pretending to wear human skin.
The blood draw happened twenty minutes later.
Elara hated needles.
Not because they hurt.
Because they forced stillness.
And stillness gave her mind too much room to wander.
The nurse tied the band around her arm carefully while chatting softly about meaningless things: weather, tourists, mountain roads.
Elara barely heard any of it.
Her gaze remained fixed on the syringe.
Dark red blood filled the vial slowly.
Normal.
Human.
Thank god.
Except—
The second, the vial filled halfway—the blood inside turned black.
The nurse froze.
Elara’s stomach dropped violently.
The blackness lasted less than a second.
Then the blood returned to normal crimson immediately.
The nurse blinked.
Confused.
“…weird lighting,” she muttered uncertainly.
Elara said nothing.
Because she had seen it too.
And this time it had not been a hallucination.
Fear crawled slowly down her spine.
Something was happening to her body. Something impossible.
The sonography room felt colder than the rest of the clinic.
Dark. Quiet.
Blue light glowing softly from medical equipment.
Elara sat rigidly on the examination table while another doctor prepared the machine nearby.
Dr. Soren stood near the corner reviewing paperwork.
Nobody spoke much.
The silence pressed heavily against her ribs.
The female technician offered a small reassuring smile.
“This may feel a little cold.”
Elara nodded mechanically.
Gel spread across her stomach.
The machine hummed softly.
For one fleeting second, absurdity overwhelmed fear entirely.
This was ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. She was not pregnant.
There would be nothing there.
The test was wrong.
The hormones were stress-related.
The trauma had confused her body somehow.
That had to be the explanation.
Because the alternative—
The screen flickered.
Static crackled softly.
The technician frowned slightly.
Then froze.
The room changed instantly.
Elara noticed it immediately.
The silence sharpened.
Dr. Soren lowered the paperwork slowly.
“What is it?” Elara asked.
Nobody answered.
Cold dread spread slowly through her chest.
“What is it?”
The technician swallowed visibly before turning the screen slightly toward Dr. Soren.
His face lost color.
“Elara…”
No. No no no.
“Tell me.”
The machine crackled again.
Then—
A heartbeat echoed through the room.
Fast. Strong. Human.
Elara stopped breathing.
Another heartbeat followed immediately after.
Then another.
Then another.
Four.
Four separate heartbeats filled the room simultaneously.
The world tilted violently beneath her.
“No.”
Her voice cracked.
The technician stared at the monitor in stunned disbelief.
“That’s impossible…”
Elara looked toward the screen finally.
Shapes.
Tiny shapes.
Four of them.
Her stomach lurched violently.
“No.”
She pushed herself upright immediately, wiping the gel from her skin with shaking hands.
“That’s wrong.”
“Elara—”
“That’s WRONG.”
Her voice rose sharply enough to echo against the walls.
The lights flickered.
Once. Twice.
The monitor crackled violently.
For one horrifying second—the screen changed. The tiny shapes disappeared.
Instead, four glowing symbols burned across the monitor in white, red, black, and pale.
The Horsemen.
Elara recoiled so violently she nearly fell from the examination table.
Then the screen returned to normal instantly.
The technician frowned at the machine.
“Electrical issue…”
No one else saw it.
Only her.
Panic clawed violently through her chest.
“This can’t be happening.”
Dr. Soren stepped forward carefully.
“Elara, listen to me—”
“I haven’t slept with anyone!”
Her voice shattered completely now.
Fear. Confusion. Violation. Grief.
Everything spilled into the room at once.
“I don’t understand how this is possible!”
And that—that was the most terrifying part.
Not the pregnancy itself.
The impossibility of it.
Because somewhere deep down, beneath the panic and denial and confusion—
Elara already knew.
The answer waited beneath The Bleeding Woods.
The ruins. The prophecy. Balance shall be born beneath grief.
Her stomach twisted again.
Movement.
This time unmistakable.
Tears burned suddenly behind her eyes.
Not from happiness. From fear.
Pure overwhelming fear.
Dr. Soren’s voice softened carefully.
“We should discuss your options.”
Options.
The word landed strangely.
Because despite everything—despite the terror swallowing her whole—something inside Elara reacted violently to the idea of losing them.
Them.
Four heartbeats.
Four impossible lives growing inside her.
The realization hit so suddenly it stole air from her lungs.
She had always wanted children.
Quietly. Privately.
Not because society expected it.
Not because she dreamed of marriage and white fences.
But because somewhere beneath all her wandering and loneliness—Elara had always wanted someone to come home to.
She simply never believed life would allow her that chance.
And now…
Now the universe had handed her four impossible miracles wrapped inside terror and prophecy and blood.
Tears slipped silently down her face before she realized she was crying.
Dr. Soren misread them immediately.
“It’s alright,” he said softly.
No.
Nothing about this was alright.
Yet beneath the fear—beneath the horror—something warm flickered painfully inside her chest.
Protectiveness. Instinctive. Immediate. Human.
The emotion terrified her most of all.
Because it meant one horrifying thing:
Despite not understanding how this happened…
Despite the impossible nature of it…
Despite the nightmares still clawing through her mind—
Elara already loved them.
The realization broke something open inside her quietly.
And somewhere far beyond the clinic walls—deep beneath The Bleeding Woods—the murals cracked a little further.
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