THIRD
370 Words
Chapter 3 – Whispers of Secrets
The next day, it was as if nothing had happened.
Lucero returned to school, smiling, joking with his classmates, and admired even more by his teachers. Yet beneath his gentle gaze, his hands still trembled—as though the coldness of the mask he had touched last night lingered in his skin.
He didn’t know if he should tell anyone. Who would even believe him?
An abandoned chapel, candles that suddenly lit themselves, and a mask that spoke to him?
But there was something else he feared even more:
The voices had followed him into the daylight.
While walking down the school hallway, the world around him would suddenly dim. And in that darkness, he would hear the whispers.
“You can never save them…”
“Why pretend? You know where you came from…”
“Lucero… you are the child of shadows.”
Sometimes, his best friend Mira noticed how pale he suddenly became.
“Lucero, are you okay? You always look like you’re hiding something,” she asked, her eyes searching him as though trying to uncover the secret he desperately concealed.
He forced a smile, masking the tremor in his voice.
“It’s nothing, Mira. Maybe… I’m just tired.”
But deep down, he knew it wasn’t simple exhaustion that woke him each night.
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The Dream
That night, he once again drifted to sleep with unease.
And in his dream, he returned to the chapel.
But now, it was no longer in ruins. The windows were whole, the altar glowed brightly, and there stood a man cloaked in black robes.
His face remained hidden, but his voice was unmistakable—the very same voice that whispered to him.
“You cannot escape, Lucero,” the figure declared.
“For the light you carry… means nothing without the darkness you conceal.”
The man stepped closer and extended the mask toward him.
“Wear it. And you will come to know your true power.”
Lucero awoke drenched in sweat, gasping, his chest pounding as if two hearts beat within him. And at the edge of his bed, he saw something that should not have been there—
The mask.
- Writer
