Chapter Four – The Gate Calls
881 Words
The whispers grew stronger with each passing day.
At first, I thought I could ignore them. I buried myself in classwork, in books, in anything that made me feel normal. But normal had slipped through my fingers the moment I stepped inside the Lancaster estate. The whispers weren’t just noise anymore. They were urgent. Insistent.
By the third night, I barely slept. My dreams weren’t mine — they belonged to the voices. They showed me shadows of another world: skies split with silver light, forests where the trees bled blue fire, castles carved from crystal and bone.
And always, at the center of it all, stood the gate.
Tall, unyielding, carved with the runes I had seen in the chapel.
Waiting for me.
⸻
“Evelyn, you look like you haven’t slept in days.”
I blinked, realizing Adrian had been speaking to me. We sat in his car outside my campus, his hand brushing against mine.
“I haven’t,” I admitted. “Adrian, it’s getting worse. I can’t—”
“No.” His voice was sharp. “Don’t say it. Don’t give them power.”
I pulled my hand back, anger and fear mixing in my chest. “You think I want this? You think I like being haunted by voices I can’t escape?”
His jaw tightened. “You don’t understand what happens if you answer. The gate doesn’t choose out of kindness. It chooses because it needs. And what it needs—”
He broke off, his eyes dark, his lips pressed into a hard line.
“What it needs is dangerous.”
⸻
I didn’t answer him. Because even as he spoke, the whispers were threading through the air between us.
Come.
Come now.
The hour is near.
That night, I didn’t wait for Adrian.
I followed the voices alone.
⸻
The chapel was darker this time, the moon hidden behind clouds. My flashlight beam danced across broken pews and shattered glass, catching on the carved runes at the center of the floor.
They glowed faintly, as though lit from within.
My chest ached. My skin tingled. Every step closer made the whispers louder, clearer.
She is here.
The gate opens.
And then, before my eyes, the stone shifted.
The runes rearranged themselves, lines glowing brighter, pulling together until the cracked floor was no longer stone at all but a circle of light.
And in that circle… a door began to form.
Tall. Ancient. Carved of stone and shadow.
The same one from my dreams.
⸻
My breath caught.
I reached out a trembling hand. The surface of the door shimmered like water and steel all at once. Cold air seeped from it, brushing against my skin like a warning.
“Don’t.”
I spun around. Adrian stood in the doorway of the chapel, his face pale, his eyes burning with fear.
“Adrian—”
“You can’t touch it,” he said, striding toward me. “You don’t know what’s on the other side.”
My hand hovered in the air. The whispers pressed against me, urgent, desperate.
Open.
Cross.
Yours.
Tears stung my eyes. “I can’t live like this anymore. They won’t stop.”
Adrian grabbed my hand, pulling it down. His grip was shaking. “Evelyn, listen to me. My family has kept this thing closed for generations. We’ve seen what happens when people try. They don’t come back.”
The words should have scared me. They did. But the whispers were stronger.
I looked at him, at the boy who had risked everything for me, who loved me despite his family’s scorn.
“I’m not them,” I whispered.
And before he could stop me, I pressed my hand against the gate.
⸻
The world shattered.
A rush of light and sound tore through me, a thousand voices screaming and singing all at once. The air bent. The ground vanished beneath my feet.
And then—silence.
When I opened my eyes, I wasn’t in the chapel anymore.
I stood on black stone, stretching endlessly in every direction. Above me, the sky was cracked open, spilling rivers of silver light through wounds in the heavens.
And before me, a forest of trees taller than towers swayed, their leaves glowing blue. Shadows moved between them, quick and graceful, too far away to see but close enough that I felt their eyes on me.
The whispers were gone.
But something else had taken their place.
A presence. Watching. Waiting.
⸻
“Evelyn!”
I spun around.
Adrian had come through. He staggered, his face pale, his eyes wide as he took in the strange world.
“What did you do?” His voice was raw, torn between awe and terror.
“I answered,” I whispered. “The gate chose me.”
He shook his head, his hand gripping my arm tightly. “No. No, you don’t understand. If you’re here—if the gate let you in—then it means…”
His words trailed off, his eyes darkening with dread.
“It means something’s coming.”
And even as he said it, the ground trembled beneath us.
From the shadows of the glowing forest, a low growl echoed.
Not human. Not animal.
Something else.
Something that had been waiting.
- Writer
