THE UNSPOKEN ECHO (BOOK 1)

Hello, It's nice to meet you all. This is my first time writing on this platform and I really like to continue this novel. Actually, I wrote this when I was 15 years old, and I just want to publish it because I think why not? And I will be making some changes along the way while writing this, since I want to revise some minor errors while I'm finishing writing this book. Let me just inform you about this story. This book is about a girl who loves mysteries and what happens to her and her friends whenever she discovers one. 1. This is a strong, capable female lead; 2. There will be a lot of characters here 3. The female lead appearance will be based on Angel Locsin. She is a Filipina actress. If you have any inquiries or suggestions, feel free to leave a comment below, and I will read all of them. Thank you very much, and I hope all of you Rockies enjoy this story. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The sun was beginning to dip behind the jagged silhouette of the Sierra Madre, casting long, distorted shadows across the dusty streets of San Guillermo. To most people, it was just a golden hour. To ten-year-old Eli Carpenter, it was the time when the world stopped making sense. Eli didn't look like the other girls in her fifth-grade class. She had a restless, observant energy, her dark eyes sharp and intense even at ten, constantly scanning the treeline or the way the wind rattled the galvanized iron roofs. She moved with a natural, tomboyish grit, her knees perpetually skinned from climbing fences she wasn't supposed to cross. While her classmates were busy trading stickers, Eli was clutching a tattered notebook she’d bought at the local sari-sari store. She wasn't interested in games. She was interested in why the town’s old Spanish bell tower rang at 3:14 AM when no one was inside, and why the stray dogs always stopped barking at the exact moment the fog rolled in from the mountains. "Eli! Wait up!" A chorus of voices called out from behind her. It was the "Rockies", a sprawling, chaotic group of neighborhood kids who followed her everywhere. There were a lot of them, a sea of faces that relied on Eli to lead the way. They were her best friends, her skeptics, and her lookouts, all rolled into one. "Did you see it?" one of the boys breathed, catching up to her at the edge of the abandoned irrigation canal. Eli didn't turn around. She was staring at a set of footprints in the mud that didn't belong to any animal she knew. They were too wide, too heavy, and they stopped abruptly in the middle of a clear path, as if whatever made them had simply vanished into thin air. She clicked her ballpoint pen, her small hand steady despite the sudden chill in the air. She had the presence of someone much older, a natural-born leader who felt the weight of every secret this town tried to bury. "It’s starting," Eli whispered, her voice low and commanding. "The stories the elders tell aren't just fairy tales. They're happening." She looked back at her friends, her expression fierce and determined. She was only ten, but in San Guillermo, being a kid didn't mean you were safe. It just meant you were the only one small enough to crawl into the places where the monsters hid.