The night air was sharp, slicing against Elara's skin as she stepped onto the cracked pavement leading to the old J.S. Library. Her breath came in clouds, her pulse quickening with each step. The building stood like a ghost—its silhouette tall and fractured, scorched brick walls blackened by fire, its sign barely hanging on by one rusty nail.
She hadn't been here since the accident.
Back then, it was her secret place—quiet, forgotten, and perfect for hiding. But now? Now it felt like a warning. A place where something—or someone—was waiting.
She stopped at the rusted gates, fingers trembling as she pushed them open. The creak of iron echoed through the night. Inside, the garden was overgrown, weeds swallowing the stone path. The moonlight struggled to reach through the fog that seemed to cling to the ground.
"Why here?" she whispered to herself. "Why bring me back?"
She stepped over broken tiles and ducked under splintered beams, making her way toward the restricted wing. Her footsteps stirred dust and memories.
She remembered the box.
She remembered burying it beneath the floorboards, convinced no one would ever find it.
The memory sent a chill down her spine.
Inside the ruined hallway, the scent of smoke still lingered. Shadows danced across the walls as her flashlight flickered—dying, almost out of battery. She cursed under her breath and quickened her pace.
At last, she reached the far end of the corridor. The wooden door to the restricted section stood ajar.
It hadn't been like that before.
Her heart slammed in her chest.
"Elara…"
She spun around.
Nothing. Just the echo of her name, carried on a wind that didn't exist.
She gritted her teeth and forced herself to move. The room was half-collapsed, books turned to ash, shelves scorched. But there—beneath a pile of debris—was the loose floorboard.
She knelt and pried it open.
Empty.
"No…" she whispered. "No, no, no…"
The box was gone.
All that remained was a piece of paper—folded neatly, stained at the corners. She hesitated, then picked it up.
This wasn't her handwriting.
It read:
"Truth isn't hidden. It's buried.
But you already knew that, didn't you?
Letter Three waits where it all began."
Below it, a symbol was drawn—three intersecting circles with a triangle in the center. Her breath caught. She'd seen that symbol before.
In her dreams.
In her nightmares.
Suddenly, a noise shattered the silence—a loud crash, metal scraping across stone. Elara jerked her head up. Footsteps. Someone was in the building.
She didn't wait.
She stuffed the note into her pocket, grabbed her flashlight, and ran.
Out through the corridor, through the fog-choked garden, past the hanging sign. The footsteps grew louder behind her, closing in.
When she reached the street, she didn't look back.
Only once she was blocks away did she stop, gasping for air. Her hands trembled as she unfolded the note again.
"Where it all began…"
Her house?
The funeral?
The first letter?
No—
The symbol.
It wasn't just in her dreams.
It was carved into her mother's gravestone.
Elara's legs were aching, but her mind raced faster than her feet. The mention of her mother—the grave, the symbol—brought back a flood of memories she had tried to lock away.
She hadn't visited the cemetery since the funeral. The weight of that day still haunted her: the cold rain, the lowered coffin, the silence of people who didn't know what to say. But now she had no choice. If the next clue was truly there, it meant whoever was leaving the letters knew far more about her than she had thought.
And that terrified her.
By the time she reached her house, the sky had started to lighten at the edges. Dawn was coming, but sleep was the last thing on her mind. She slipped inside quietly, locking the door behind her and pulling the blinds shut. Her fingers moved on instinct, grabbing a backpack, flashlight batteries, and the old locket her mother had left her—something she hadn't touched in years.
She opened it.
Inside was a faded photo of them both, and behind it, a tiny scrap of folded paper she'd forgotten about. Her mother's handwriting, barely visible:
"Don't trust the silence. Listen to the noise."
"What does that mean?" Elara whispered, staring at the note. It was vague—cryptic—but somehow, it felt connected.
She took a quick shower, dressed in black, and left again before anyone in the neighborhood noticed. She didn't want questions. She didn't want company. Not now.
The cemetery stood just outside town, on a hill that always caught the wind. Leaves danced across the path as Elara walked, heart pounding with every step.
Row after row of gravestones passed by her until she found it.
Mira Vales.
Beloved Mother. Keeper of Secrets.
1977 – 2021.
Elara's breath hitched. She knelt beside the grave, letting her fingers trace the familiar grooves of her mother's name. But then, just beneath the base of the stone, she saw it.
The symbol.
Three circles. One triangle.
Etched so faintly it was nearly invisible.
She pulled out the note from the library and compared the symbol. It was identical.
Suddenly, the ground beneath the gravestone shifted slightly—just enough to reveal a small slit in the soil. She hesitated, then dug with her hands, pushing away dirt and roots until her fingers touched something solid.
A small, rusted tin box.
She pulled it free, heart racing.
Inside was the third letter, sealed in red wax with the same triangle symbol. And underneath it…
A photo.
Of her mother, standing next to someone Elara had never seen before.
A man with piercing eyes.
And on the back of the photo was a message, written in the same ink as the letters:
"He watched you grow.
He knows what you are.
The third truth is his to tell."
Elara's hands trembled.
Who was he?
And how was he connected to her mother?
Elara stood in the wind, letter in hand, eyes fixed on the photo.
She wasn't just solving a mystery.
She was unraveling a life—her own