Episode 5
1334 Words
The Lantern Outside the Window
Amara could not move.
The floating lantern remained outside her bedroom window, glowing softly against the darkness like a living star. Rain drifted through the night in thin silver lines, yet the flame inside the lantern did not flicker once.
Her hands trembled around her mother’s journal.
Then the voice came again.
“Find me.”
Her mother’s voice.
Soft.
Distant.
Painfully real.
Amara’s chest tightened so hard it hurt to breathe.
Every instinct told her to run, to hide beneath her blankets like a frightened child, but another feeling rose stronger than fear.
Hope.
For three years she had buried the possibility that her mother might still exist somewhere beyond death and silence. Now, hearing that voice again, hope returned like fire spreading through dry grass.
Slowly, Amara stood from her bed.
The lantern outside drifted backward slightly, as though waiting for her to follow.
“No,” she whispered shakily to herself. “This can’t be real.”
Yet her feet carried her toward the window anyway.
Outside, the village slept beneath darkness. No fires burned. No voices echoed through the streets. Only the rain and the distant forest remained awake.
The lantern floated away from the house.
Toward the hill.
Toward the Lantern Tree.
Amara’s heartbeat thundered in her ears.
Without fully thinking, she grabbed her cloak from the chair beside her bed and hurried downstairs as quietly as possible.
The wooden staircase groaned beneath her feet.
She paused halfway, listening.
Silence.
Her grandmother was asleep.
At least, Amara hoped so.
She reached the front door carefully and lifted the latch.
Cold wind struck her face immediately.
Outside, the floating lantern hovered near the edge of the muddy pathway, its golden light reflecting across puddles of rainwater.
Waiting.
Amara stepped into the night.
The lantern moved forward again.
She followed.
The deeper she walked into the village, the colder the air became. Rain soaked through her clothes while shadows stretched strangely between the houses.
Something felt wrong.
Too quiet.
Even the insects had stopped making noise.
The lantern continued leading her toward the forest road.
Amara’s breathing quickened.
She remembered the warning written inside the journal:
If the singing calls your name, do not answer.
But what if the voice truly belonged to her mother?
What if she was alive somewhere beneath the Lantern Tree, trapped and waiting to be found?
The thought pulled her forward stronger than fear.
Soon the last house disappeared behind her.
Now only the forest remained ahead.
Tall trees swayed violently in the wind while darkness swallowed the narrow path leading uphill. Somewhere far away, thunder rolled softly across the sky.
The floating lantern paused beside the forest entrance.
Amara stopped too.
Every story she had ever heard about this place returned at once.
Spirits in the trees.
Voices beneath the ground.
People who entered after dark and never returned.
Her chest tightened painfully.
Then the singing began again.
Closer than before.
A woman humming softly somewhere inside the forest.
Tears burned Amara’s eyes instantly.
“Mother?” she whispered.
The lantern drifted between the trees.
Amara took a shaky step forward—
A hand suddenly grabbed her arm.
She screamed.
“Quiet!”
Eli’s voice.
Amara spun toward him in shock.
Rainwater dripped from his dark hair as he pulled her away from the forest entrance.
“What are you doing here?” he hissed.
“I—I heard her voice.”
“I know.”
His expression looked tense, almost frightened.
“The lantern called you out.”
Amara stared at him. “You knew?”
Eli glanced toward the floating light disappearing deeper into the forest.
“My father wrote about this in his notes. The tree sends lanterns to people carrying grief.”
Amara’s pulse quickened.
“Then maybe it really is my mother.”
“No,” Eli said firmly. “That’s how it hunts.”
The words hit her like cold water.
Amara looked back toward the trees.
The singing had stopped.
Now the forest stood silent again.
“What do you mean?” she asked quietly.
Eli hesitated before answering.
“The Lantern Tree doesn’t just trap spirits. It learns from them. It remembers voices, memories… emotions.” His eyes darkened. “Sometimes it uses those things to lure people closer.”
Fear crawled through Amara’s stomach.
“So the voice wasn’t real?”
“I don’t know.”
That answer frightened her even more.
A sudden crack echoed deep within the forest.
Both of them froze.
Branches moved somewhere beyond the darkness.
Heavy movement.
Not human.
Eli immediately pulled a small knife from beneath his cloak.
“We need to leave.”
Another crack sounded closer this time.
Amara’s breathing grew shallow.
Then she saw it.
Two pale white eyes opened between the trees.
Watching them.
Her blood turned ice cold.
The figure slowly stepped forward into the rain.
Tall.
Thin.
Its body twisted unnaturally beneath torn black cloth hanging from its limbs like wet skin. Long fingers dragged across the muddy ground while its face remained hidden beneath shadows.
But the eyes—
Empty white eyes glowing like moonlight.
Amara stumbled backward in terror.
“What is that?” she whispered.
Eli’s face tightened grimly.
“One of the Taken.”
The creature tilted its head strangely.
Then it smiled.
A horrible cracking sound came from its jaw as the smile stretched too wide across its face.
Amara nearly screamed.
“Run,” Eli said quietly.
The creature lunged.
They bolted instantly.
Mud splashed beneath their feet as they raced down the village path. Behind them came unnatural sounds — snapping limbs, dragging footsteps, wet breathing.
The thing moved impossibly fast.
Amara risked a glance backward.
The creature crawled through the rain on all fours now, its limbs bending the wrong direction while lantern light flickered beneath its skin.
Terror exploded inside her chest.
“Hurry!” Eli shouted.
They sprinted toward the village square.
Doors remained shut as they passed. Nobody dared come outside.
The creature shrieked behind them — a sound so unnatural it barely resembled a human voice.
Then suddenly—
BANG!
A bright flame erupted ahead.
Baba Duro stood in the center of the road holding a burning torch high above his head. Strange markings covered the ground around him in white powder.
The creature stopped instantly.
Its pale eyes narrowed.
Baba Duro slammed his staff against the earth.
“Return to the roots!” he roared.
The powder markings burst into golden fire.
The creature screamed violently.
Amara covered her ears as the sound echoed across the village.
Then, like smoke caught in wind, the creature vanished into darkness.
Silence followed.
Only rain remained.
Amara collapsed to her knees, breathing hard.
Eli lowered his knife slowly.
Baba Duro approached them with grim eyes.
“You foolish children,” he muttered.
Amara looked up shakily. “What was that thing?”
The old man’s expression darkened.
“A soul the tree consumed long ago.”
Cold fear settled deep inside her.
“You mean… it used to be human?”
Baba Duro nodded once.
“The Lantern Tree changes the spirits it traps. Over time, grief twists them into something else.”
Amara remembered the creature’s smile.
Its empty eyes.
Its broken body.
A terrible thought entered her mind.
“What if my mother becomes one of them?”
Baba Duro’s silence was answer enough.
Tears filled Amara’s eyes instantly.
“No…”
The old man crouched beside her carefully.
“Listen to me,” he said quietly. “If your mother’s spirit still survives, then time is running out.”
Amara looked at him.
“The Hollow,” Baba Duro continued. “That is where the truth waits. And perhaps… where your mother still waits too.”
Thunder rolled above the village.
Tomorrow night, they would enter the forest.
And for the first time, Amara realized something horrifying:
Some secrets were never meant to be found.
- Writer
