Nathaniel couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being pulled, tugged at the edges of his memory, caught in something beyond his control. The woman’s words echoed in his mind, each syllable vibrating with a terrible, undeniable truth. You are part of the circle now. He had crossed some invisible threshold, but how far down the rabbit hole did it go? And what, exactly, was he entangled in?
The chamber around him felt alive, the stone walls pressing in as if the very structure was holding its breath. He looked around, his pulse quickening. The carvings in the walls had seemed ancient before, but now they felt different—more real, more menacing. They weren’t just symbols; they were warnings, promises, or perhaps curses. They told a story, but Nathaniel couldn’t decipher it. The whispers had
