The bonfire crackled, tall and unnatural, its flames dancing black and gold against the ink-stained trees.
Shadows stretched like reaching hands across the clearing. Around it, twelve cloaked figures moved in slow, deliberate formation, robes brushing the earth like whispers of silk and ash.
At the center, an ancient stone altar is slick with dried old blood. Upon it lay a slender woman, her limbs bound with coarse rope, and mouth gagged with crimson cloth.
Her head rolled weakly to the side, cheek scraping against the cold, uneven stone of the altar. A low groan slipped from her throat, raw and instinctive, as if her body was waking before her mind could catch up.
Then came stillness.
The groan turned into shallow breathing, ragged and unsteady. Her fingers twitched against the bindings at her sides.
Her eyes blinked open.
At first, they were glassy and unfocused, pupils struggling to adjust to the flickering firelight. Her lips parted slightly, parched and trembling. Then her gaze sharpened, recognition hitting like a train.
Rough stone. The smell of smoke and iron. Robed figures surrounding her in a perfect circle. An open sky veiled in ash.
Confusion twisted into panic.
Her breath hitched as her body jerked against the ropes.
And her eyes went wide with rising dread.
One of the cultists stepped forward, his movements slow and deliberate. Beneath the heavy shadow of his hood, a cruel smile flickered.
He knelt beside the altar, his fingers brushing the woman's cheek almost gently, then reached down and tore the gag from her mouth.
She gasped, sucking in air like she hadn't breathed in hours. Her throat was raw, every syllable dragged over broken glass.
Then she screamed.
It was hoarse and frantic, a sound that cracked in the middle from strain and fear. Her voice echoed off the stones, swallowed by the night and the circle of silent hoods around her.
"Please, what is this? What are you doing? Help me! Somebody, please! I have a family! I have-!"
She didn't finish.
Because something shifted.
The circle parted.
And from between the robed figures stepped a new shape. A tall figure, robed in black that was darker than the firelight could touch. The flames seemed to shrink away from him.
His face was hidden behind a mask—brass, polished like bone, carved with six eyes that stared in every direction and none. No mouth. No voice. He moved without a sound.
The woman fell silent, her cries choking back into her throat
He was silent as he drew a ceremonial blade out from his robe. It was long and thin like a fang forged in hell.
The masked figure moved closer, silent as a shadow. With one gloved hand, he reached down and gripped her jaw, forcing her head upright. She thrashed harder, shoulders jerking, wrists straining against the bindings until the rope burned her skin. Her sobs came in sharp, broken gasps.
"Don't," she whimpered, voice shaking. "Please—don't. Please, I don't want to die!"
The brass mask offered no answer.
Only the blade did.
It flashed once in the firelight, a thin arc of steel catching the glow of the bonfire before it kissed her throat. The cut was smooth. Practiced. Final.
She jerked as the blade passed through skin and muscle. A fine red line bloomed across her neck. Then it opened, and the blood came fast, dark and steaming in the cold air.
It spilled down her chest, pouring into the iron chalice below the altar with soft, wet patters.
She choked, eyes wide, mouth twitching as she tried to breathe. Tried to scream. Only blood came up.
Her body spasmed once, twice and then went still.
Her chest fell silent. Her lips froze half-parted. And her eyes, locked on the sky above, dimmed slowly.
The light within them faded like the last glow of a dying fire, embers smothered beneath fresh dirt.
The masked cultist straightened.
He lifted the chalice high, both hands wrapped around it like it held something sacred.
And then he began to chant in a deep voice, low and unwavering. Each Latin syllable echoing out into the dead air.
"Lord of Babylon, teller of truths, prince of accusers and inquisitors, guide us with your wisdom."
With one smooth, deliberate motion, the masked figure turned and cast the contents of the chalice into the heart of the bonfire.
The blood struck the flames with a sharp hiss, high and serpentine, like something alive recoiling from pain.
Then, everything stopped.
No birds. No wind. The surrounding woods, once filled with distant nocturnal murmurs, fell into a sudden and suffocating stillness. Even the fire itself seemed caught mid-motion, its flames frozen as if time had paused and forgotten how to continue.
The silence pressed in.
Then the air shifted.
A wave of dark pressure rippled outward from the bonfire. It crashed into the circle of cultists like a silent impact, powerful and invisible. The trees groaned around them. The earth vibrated beneath their feet. The air grew thick and metallic, hard to breathe, as though the atmosphere itself had turned to wet iron.
Every breath felt stolen. Every sound, stolen with it.
And then—
The woman now stood beside it.
She did not rise so much as appear, her presence blooming into the world like smoke curling back into shape. Blood still clung to her skin in thin, elegant streaks, painting her like a martyr in stained glass. Her face, though pale and cold, held a regal stillness, as if she had been carved from ivory. There was no fear in her expression. Only poise, and something ancient stirring just beneath the surface.
Her eyes opened, black and bottomless, reflecting the firelight without catching it.
She smiled.
The expression was too wide, almost perfect in its symmetry, and yet it rang false. Beautiful in form, but hollow. A mask stretched over something that had never been human. Still, there was a terrible grace in her posture, a haunting majesty in the way she moved. She carried herself like a queen stepping down from a forgotten throne.
Her limbs shifted with a faint crack of bone and tendon. Not broken. Realigned. Refined to fit the shape of something greater. Something meant to be worshiped.
The cultists collapsed to their knees, as if their bones had turned to ash. Heads bowed low. Foreheads touching the dirt. A hush fell over the clearing.
Their voices rose together, soft and trembling.
"My Lord..."
She turned toward them, arms lifting slowly, like a blessing twisted into command. The flames behind her shimmered, casting a halo of flickering gold and black around her form. For a moment, she looked divine.
But only for a moment.
When she spoke, her voice came in three layers.
One was soft and almost human, touched with sorrow and memory. The second was older, slithering, soaked in secrets. The third rumbled low and vast, the sound of doors opening deep underground, of stone scraping against stone.
"Rise my sons."
Some obeyed.
They looked up with reverence, eyes wide and shining, and began to lift themselves from the ground.
She watched them, still smiling.
Then her smile faded.
"Did I say to raise your heads so highly in my presence?"
Her voice was cold silk pulled taut, beautiful and deadly.
She raised one hand.
Their bodies convulsed. Necks snapped one by one, the sound sharp and final. Blood sprayed across the altar. They dropped to the earth like broken dolls, limbs twitching once before falling still.
The remaining cultists did not move.
She lowered her hand again.
"Good," she said, her voice rich with satisfaction. "The faithful know their place."
And around her, the fire burned higher.
"Do you think we are equals?" she asked, her voice honeyed with mockery. "That you may hold your head so high in my presence?"
The remaining worshippers, still kneeling, pressed their faces closer to the dirt in fear.
"No, my lord," they said in unison.
"Good." She smiled, a rictus of satisfaction.
"I have seen the threads of fate," she continued. "You will go now, and seek the Dragon of Ruin. The serpent that coils around the world."
She turned to the bonfire. The flames twisted upward, hissing unnaturally as a figure formed in the heart of the blaze. A boy with curly blonde hair and hazel eyes. Felix.
"He is the key to our salvation," she declared, her voice both trembling and thunderous. "Find the boy."
Then, something changed.
A trickle of blood slid from her nostril, dark and slow. She paused, blinking, and tilted her head as if listening to something only she could hear.
The voice that emerged from her lips was deeper now, resonating like a growl behind her teeth.
"It seems this body has reached its limits now," the demon noted.
Her limbs began to convulse, twitching and seizing uncontrollably. Cracks split across her skin like lightning over stone, glowing with an unnatural heat beneath.
Her veins bulged and blackened as the borrowed flesh began to tear itself apart.
With a sudden, sickening burst, her body exploded, a storm of blood and bone painting the ground and altar.
Westland, Michigan - ELOISE INSANE ASYLUM
The road to Eloise was overgrown, hemmed in by trees that looked skeletal under the van's headlights. Fog clung low to the pavement, thick and stubborn, as if it were trying to keep them out. Or trap them in.
Chloe slowed the van as the building came into view. Eloise Asylum loomed beyond the rusted gates, crumbling and half-swallowed by ivy.
The windows were shattered, the roof sagged in places. Even from a distance, it looked wrong almost like the land itself had given up trying to support it.
She killed the engine.
No one spoke for a moment.
Then Milo adjusted his glasses and said quietly, "We're here."
Seven of them in total. The crew. They'd spent months planning this trip and waiting for the right night, the right phase of the moon, the right abandoned building with a sordid history and no working security. Eloise was infamous. A century-old asylum, shut down after a violent riot in 1972. Patients vanished. Staff turned on each other. Official records were scarce.
Chloe stepped out first. Her boots crunched over gravel as she scanned the building. "We set up, record all night, and we don't leave until sunrise. That's the deal."
"Okay but I still don't like that she's here," Zee said, glancing toward the backseat.
Sadie, Chloe's eleven-year-old sister, sat quietly with a flashlight clutched in both hands. Her face was pale but calm. Almost too calm.
"I didn't have a choice," Chloe said. "Mom said I take her, or we don't go."
"Then she better stay close to us," Zee muttered in annoyance.
"She will."
The others climbed out in silence. Milo carried the cameras and sensors. Breezy brought the audio equipment and a tin of salt, worn and dented from past uses.
Snax shouldered the bags of batteries and backup gear without complaint.
Tyler gripped the smaller handheld cam, already recording in night vision.
They passed through the twisted remains of the gate. A weather-worn sign swayed slightly in the breeze.
ELOISE STATE HOSPITAL FOR THE CRIMINALLY INSANE
Inside, the air shifted. Outside, it had been warm and damp, but the moment they crossed the threshold, the temperature dropped sharply. It felt like stepping into a freezer, or a tomb.
Their footsteps echoed through the main foyer. Broken glass littered the floor. Bits of paper, rotted and yellowed, fluttered like leaves from old files. The light from their flashlights barely seemed to touch the edges of the walls.
"It's bigger than I expected," Snax said, voice low.
"Too big," Milo replied. "The blueprints say it has four floors, but there are accounts of a fifth. Some kind of sub-level, off-books apparently."
"We're not going underground," Zee said. "Just so we're clear."
Chloe nodded. "We stick to the plan. Set up the cameras first. One in every wing, one at each stairwell, one in the hallway."
They moved like clockwork. Breezy dusted off old furniture to place motion sensors. Tyler muttered to himself as he counted battery life on the monitors. Milo scanned the walls for temperature drops.
Chloe noticed it first, the growing silence.
Even with seven people moving, even with gear and voices, the space around them felt hollow. No wind. No settling groans of an old building. Just... nothing.
"I've got a cold spot," Milo whispered from the far corridor. "It's dropping fast."
Chloe checked her own monitor. The temperature was steady. But her breath had started to fog.
"Check audio," she said.
Breezy nodded, headphones already on. Her brow furrowed. "There's something," she said. "Like static. And... something else. Faint. I can't make it out."
"Is it feedback?"
"No. It's not from us."
In the center hall, they set up the final camera. Tyler adjusted the lens, then checked the feed on the small screen.
He paused.
"Wait," he said. "Something's wrong."
They gathered behind him. On the playback, the hallway stretched far longer than it had moments before. The far wall, just a few steps away in reality, now seemed impossibly distant on the screen. A thin, shadowed figure stood in the far corner.
No one had seen it in person.
"I thought this was a straight hallway," Zee said, frowning.
"It was," Chloe answered.
Tyler looked up from the screen. The hallway in front of them was normal. Short. Solid walls.
He looked back at the screen. The shadow was gone.
FELIX
The cab of the semi hummed with steady motion, the soft rattle of loose bolts and the low whine of tires blending into the stale twang of a country song playing through old, crackling speakers. Outside, dawn hadn't quite arrived. The sky was a cold slate gray, and fog clung to the ground like it had nowhere else to be.
Felix leaned back in the passenger seat, hoodie half-zipped, chin tilted toward the cracked window. His breath fogged the glass slightly. His sneakers were kicked up on the dash, scuffed soles pressed against a faded bobblehead of the Moana glued to the dashboard. She nodded with every bump in the road.
They passed a sign on the side of the highway, its paint chipped but still legible.
WELCOME TO WESTLAND, MICHIGAN
AN ALL AMERICAN CITY
Felix let out a low whistle. "Now there's a welcoming sight if I ever seen one."
Billy Bob grunted as they passed it. "Not exactly a vacation spot."
Felix didn't look away from the window. "Not exactly on vacation."
The older man tilted his head, eyeing the boy beside him like a strange bug on a windshield. He'd picked Felix up three towns back, loitering near a gas station with a book bag and that restless and road worn look.
He cleared his throat. "So what are you really doin' out in these parts?"
Felix leaned back, folded his arms behind his head, and smirked.
"Oh, you know. Sightseeing. Spreading my loins or whatever they call it. Just... living life."
Billy Bob let out a single huff of air that might have been a laugh.
Billy Bob was somewhere north of fifty, face leathered by time and sun, eyes shaded by a trucker cap with a Texas flag stitched across the front. His grip on the wheel was relaxed, but his posture was that of someone who'd been driving longer than some people lived.
"Uh-huh," he said, drawl as thick as molasses. "Back in my day, we called that chasin' trouble or runnin' from somethin'."
Felix grinned. "Wouldn't be living if you weren't running from something."
"True enough," Billy Bob muttered. He took a long sip from his thermos, grimaced, and set it down with a dull clunk. "Still. If you're headin' toward Eloise, you might want to think twice. That place's got a reputation. Not the good kind."
Felix kept his eyes on the fog-laced tree line.
"Yeah? What kind?"
Billy Bob shrugged, his hands steady on the wheel. "Stories, mostly. Folks go up that way and come back different—if they come back at all. Heard more than one man say they felt watched. Like the place knew they were there. Never sat right with me."
Felix gave a faint smirk. "Sounds like my kind of place."
Billy Bob side-eyed him, frowning just slightly. "You're either real brave or real stupid."
"Little bit of both," Felix said. "But it beats standing behind a register asking people if they want a receipt."
Silence stretched for a minute or so, but it wasn't uncomfortable. Just the sound of two people who didn't need to fill the air with much.
The trees started getting denser the further east they went, the way the branches hung low like they were eavesdropping. The road narrowed, cracked and half-swallowed by overgrowth.
Billy Bob clicked on his blinker and eased the truck onto the shoulder, gravel crunching under the tires as they rolled to a stop.
"This is where I turn off," he said. "Eloise's about a half-mile that way. Past the trees. You'll see what's left of it if you look hard enough."
Felix grabbed his backpack from under his seat and slung it over one shoulder. He opened the door and hopped out into the early morning chill, gravel shifting beneath his shoes.
Billy Bob leaned toward the open window. "You be safe now. That place… it don't feel right. Full of bad blood and history."
Felix looked back at him, a faint smirk on his lips.
"Don't worry," he said. "I don't plan on staying too long. Just a little sightseeing."
Billy Bob just nodded. "You get that look in your eyes, like you've already been through hell."
Felix offered a two-finger salute. "And lived to tell the tale."
"God help you, son," the trucker said, almost under his breath.
"Thanks, Billy Bob." he said, "You stay safe now!"
The truck rumbled back onto the road and rolled into the mist, red taillights vanishing like coals snuffed out in fog.
Felix stood there a moment longer, listening to the quiet. No birds. No wind. Just the damp chill and the long stretch of cracked road ahead.
He adjusted the strap of his bag, glancing toward the tree line, and began walking.