Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
SANORA
Once, I used to think my mother hated me.
Like, the full-on, blood-boiling, “you were an accident” and “I want you out of my house” kind of hate. I’d convinced myself of that for most of my childhood, and really, she didn’t do much to prove me wrong. She didn’t even care because she knew I was going through a phase.
But some hours ago, she grumbled and swore the entire way from our house to the train station, dragging my box of crap behind her like it had personally insulted her. And it made me realise I was an idiot for viewing her the way I did as a kid.
She didn’t say she loved me, even though I told her three times. I even made her a heart with my hands. What did I get in return? A hard smack on the back and a gritted, “Get out of my sight.” Meanwhile, her eyes were shining like she’d accidentally cut an onion the size of her sadness.
It wasn’t me leaving that pissed her off and got her worrying, it was where I was heading.
Three hours before departure, she pulled up the internet and showed me every terrifying news report about Nimorran. Flood, creepy and abandoned places, missing people, and something about The Crater swallowing a village.
I’d only been on the train for thirty minutes when she called to check up, even though she knew the ride would take twenty. Whole. Hours.
Twenty freaking hours.
I would’ve rather locked myself in a house and set the building on fire if this trip wasn’t my idea.
I tried to distract myself by glancing at the kid beside me. A baby with wide grey eyes was staring like I’d just escaped from a circus. I grinned at her, all sweet and charming, and even gave her a wave. But that was the moment the little traitor chose to turn away. Instantly.
I sat mid-wave, hand frozen in the air. Then I laughed it off, acting like I didn’t just get rejected by someone who probably eats crayons and rubber for fun.
When I turned back, I buried my face in the book I’d been reading since last night.
It was a thick academic text called Veiled Realms: Histories of the Hidden South. Not exactly a page-turner, but it had this one chapter that kept me hooked. It was about the Saeri Vale Insurgency.
Six hundred years ago, there’d been a secluded kingdom in the South—Saeri Vale.
No one alive could quite agree if it had truly existed, because most of its records were lost in what scholars now called The Ashing.
All that remained were burned scripts, translated relics, and a single map with half the names scratched out.
But the legend? The legend was everywhere. At least for people who were interested.
It said the last ruler of Saeri Vale made a deal with a god that fell from the sky. A being with silver eyes that bled moonlight. In exchange for protecting the people, she gave up her soul, binding it to his. Peace followed…for a while.
Then she vanished. He went mad. And Saeri Vale was swallowed by smoke and silence.
No one knew what went wrong.
Presently, most historians think it was metaphorical. But a few believed the kingdom was cursed and erased.
Honestly? I wasn’t sure what I believed. But there was a portrait carved into the wall of a broken temple in the North-west, dated roughly to that period. A woman with moon-pale eyes, holding a blade to her own chest while a kingdom behind her collapsed.
Yeah. That image hasn’t left my head since I saw it.
Six hours in, my eyes were begging for mercy. I closed the book and leaned against the window, the cool glass biting at my cheek. The trees blurred into long green strokes, the sky smeared in dark blue.
Sleep tugged at me. And I didn’t fight it.
I dragged myself out of sleep two hours later just to shove some overpriced train food down my throat, then crawled back to sleep hoping the remaining nine hours would magically disappear.
They didn’t.
My mother had already called ten times by then. Thankfully, her calls and texts gave me something to do other than sleep and read.
Somewhere during hour sixteen, I went to the train’s sorry excuse of a bathroom and stretched my sore body. I wished I could massage my butt—it was hurting. Sitting still that long felt like my body was staging a protest.
And yet...I sat.
And time crawled.
By the time the train screeched to its final stop, my brain was fried, my legs were jelly, and I thought I might actually cry from joy. That was until I remembered I had four boxes to drag off this damn train.
Yeah. Four.
My mother was right afterall.
I had my temporary stay booked two weeks ago and a map on my phone to guide me. That part was fine. What wasn’t fine? Getting all my crap out of this station alone.
Funny how I never thought about that part.
I left the boxes at the edge of the platform and slipped through the crowds, stepping out into the open, hoping I’d spot a cab or gods, even a wheelbarrow would do.
But the moment I crossed the station’s archway and stepped into the town, something hit me.
Hard.
It was like walking into a wall made of air. A cold, thick and heavy air. When my foot hit the ground outside the station, my lungs forgot how to work. I blinked, tried to breathe, and then I realised that I was dizzy.
The kind of dizziness that starts in your chest, rises to your head, and makes the world feel like it just tilted a degree sideways.
My heart dropped into my stomach like a stone thrown down a deep well. The ground didn’t move, but I did. Just a little stagger. My knees gave a warning twitch, as though they weren’t entirely on my side anymore.
My skin tightened, goosebumps surging up both arms.
The air felt different.
The station behind me buzzed like any other. But out here, beyond the archway, the air was quiet.
Too quiet.
The town stretched in front of me indifferently, like it hadn’t just reached into my chest and clenched.
Houses sat shoulder to shoulder, stacked in neat little rows.
They weren’t run-down, but they weren’t new either.
Stone foundations. Sloped roofs. A few still had wooden beams exposed across their fronts, some shops had their signs creaking in the breeze.
There were satellite dishes on the roofs. But also ancient chimneys. An old pharmacy. But also a working ATM beside it.
A kid raced past me with a smartphone in one hand and no shoes on, giggling softly like the world hadn’t ended here once.
The town wasn’t outdated, not really—but it wasn’t modern either. It sat somewhere in between, like it had refused to be pulled forward with the rest of the world.
A man passed by on a bicycle, nodding politely. I nodded back, still dazed, still rattled. The streets curved and dipped slightly, lined with lamps that hadn’t come on yet, and over the rooftops, I could see distant hills wrapped in a low, clinging mist.
I took a step further in, drawn without realising. It was as if something had grabbed a string inside me and tugged.
Dusk had started to settle, casting the town in soft lavender and gold.
And the air—God, the air was colder than it should’ve been. It slipped into my lungs and coiled there in not a painful, but a possessive way. It wrapped around my bones, licked at the back of my neck, and slithered down my spine.
I didn’t know how long I walked—maybe minutes. Maybe hours. But every breath I took made the cold worse.
The town wasn’t dead.
It was breathing.
And with each step I took, it breathed me in.
It should’ve terrified me.
Instead I felt...awake. Like every nerve in my body had just come online for the first time.
And then I remembered my boxes.
“Shit,” I muttered, spinning around so fast the street blurred for a second. I ran back the way I’d come, scanning for headlights.
A black car cruised slowly down the street, windows half-down, music low.
I stepped in front of it without thinking. The driver hit the brakes, startled. I leaned in before he could yell.
“Station,” I said, breathing hard. “I have four boxes you could help me with. You in?”
“You got money?”
I nodded. “A lot of it.”
He laughed and popped the door open. “Climb in.”
I’d wanted a place closer to The Crater, somewhere with a direct view. But apparently, people around here would rather dig themselves a twelve-foot grave and die in it than live anywhere near the thing.
Still, the house I settled into two hours ago wasn’t the worst. From my bedroom window, I could see the faint silhouette of the three hills that cradled The Crater.
I’d only ever seen drone footage in books and dodgy documentaries.
I’d always wondered what it looked like up close.
Judging by the sheer scale of the surrounding hills, it had to be massive.
With my tea in hand, I stepped away from the window and crouched in front of one of my unopened boxes—the one with my cameras, historical texts, and some weird trinkets I picked up from an old collector.
There was also a medallion I got when I was ten.
A weird thing, circular and heavy, carved with symbols no one could translate.
I picked up my DSLR, drained the rest of my tea—it scalded my throat—and returned to the window. I raised the camera and snapped a quick shot of the mountain line. Not great. Too dark. I’d get a better one tomorrow.
My gaze dropped to the street below. It was lined with dull, flickering yellow lamps that made everything look jaundiced. The houses were far apart, and opposite mine was just a stretch of trees and thick bushes. This had to be the last house on the street.
I took a lazy shot of the road. Maybe I’d send it to Mother to let her know I wasn’t dead yet.
I glanced at the preview.
My body froze.
There was someone in the photo.
A tall figure stood dead centre in the middle of the street, head tilted back, staring up. Staring at my window.
I hadn’t seen anyone down there before I took the photo. I was sure of it. But that wasn’t what made my stomach twist.
It had no shadow.
None. The streetlamps all around it buzzed with yellow light, but it was like they refused to touch it. Even the face was buried in darkness, as though someone had blurred it out with a brush of dark grey. It was just a dark figure that stood amidst the lights, yet they cast no shadow of him.
I slowly lowered the camera and looked out the window.
Nothing.
Just the road. The trees. The bushes.
Empty.
My breath caught in my chest. My fingers, still clutching the camera, went cold. I snapped another photo. Then another. A third. Nothing. Every frame showed the same lonely street.
I went back to the first picture, and my skin crawled. My head was spinning too fast for me.
Was it a glitch?
I gasped.
Or did I just photograph a ghost?
And why the hell was it staring at my window?
I stepped back from the glass like it might shatter and pull me through. I reached for the curtains, only to find there were none. Nothing. Just bare windows like whoever set up this place didn’t believe in privacy.
Great. I’d add that to tomorrow’s list.
Flicking the light switch off, I turned towards my box to put the camera away. As I leaned down to drop it, the back of my hand grazed the medallion.
“Fuck,” I hissed and recoiled instantly, nearly dropping the camera but caught it last second, gaping at the medallion.
When I’d touched it earlier, it had felt like a cold ordinary chunk of metal. But suddenly, for the first time, it was hot. Scorching. The heat had sizzled against my skin, as if it had been sitting in a fire pit.
My brain whirred.
My gaze darted between the camera and the old object, heart hammering like it was trying to punch out of my chest. I didn’t want to put the pieces together. Nope. Not tonight. My brain was fried already.
Screw that.
I slammed the box shut, zipped it, shoved it beneath the bed and practically jumped under the covers.
Strangely, even though the outside air had been cold enough to bite through bones, the house itself was warm. Too warm. And there wasn’t even a heater.
What bothered me more was how nobody else outside had seemed cold. They were dressed like it was late spring. Like they didn’t feel what I felt.
Oh gods, I’d hate to say my mother was right.