“I am a forest, and a night of dark trees: but he who is not afraid of my darkness, will find banks full of roses under my cypresses.”
Nietzsche
They say we fear the dark because it hides what we cannot see. But what if it reveals what we refuse to face? Darkness is not merely the absence of light; it is the presence of everything we have buried, forgotten, denied. In the dark, fear becomes a language spoken in silent breaths, in the way shadows seem to lean closer.
Kei woke with a gasp, eyes darting around the room. He checked the clock on his nightstand - 3 A.M. Another sleepless night. His night terrors were getting worse, and the insomnia was consuming his mind. He sat in his bed for a while, staring at nothing, then got up, put on his joggers and raincoat, and went out for his usual walk down Library Road.
While walking past “Solmere University”, his anxiety and anger were getting deeper. What was he suddenly so afraid of? Was it stress – being a first-year student at ”Solmore” is a big deal, or maybe living for the first time on his own was making him uneasy? Was it because of the hushed sounds, the silent voice he’d been hearing for some weeks now, or was that also a product of not being able to sleep properly? Streetlights flickered.
Kei suddenly stopped and looked around. He wasn’t on his typical path. The street was unfamiliar. Lights flared again. Searching for his phone, he felt air tighten – a hush turning to a hiss, curling closer with every heartbeat. Was it only in his head – a migraine? His heart started pounding against his chest, the hushing became words he couldn’t understand, syllables filled with hunger. Streetlights began furiously flickering, shadows distorting, moving weirdly as if becoming real beings, as if Kei’s fear encouraged them to dance around him. He could feel his soul freezing with horror, his bones aching. Everything went dark.
Kei felt a sharp hit at the back of his head and realized he was lying on the ground. He got up, dusted himself, and reached for his phone once again. The world around him was not the one he’d left. The air tasted heavy, the scent of rain. A forest stretched endlessly in every direction. He tried to step back, to retrace his path to the city, but it was as if everything he had ever known had dissolved. And yet in the strangest way, it all felt familiar. As though he’d walked here before. As though he’d finally come home.
The forest felt ancient, sacred. Trees were towering above his head, moonlight falling like silver threads between their translucent leaves and drowning in a thin mist just above the mossy ground. The silence pressed against Kei’s ears until it shifted. At first, only a hush, then it thickened, raised in pitch. High and eerie, piercing as a blade. It was no longer the whisper in his head, and for the first time, the words were clear.
“Souls will drown, and shadows will bind, the hollow crown is yours to find”
Something flickered in the bushes on his left. He blinked hard, trying to focus his vision on the two lights that had just emerged. Two eyes, perfectly glimmering like crystals, were watching him patiently. Kei took a step forward, then another. Every movement felt less like a choice and more like obedience, the lights were drawing him nearer.
Suddenly, the mist curled thicker around him, and the song turned into a hiss of words. Kei snapped out of his trance. Shadows quickly rose from the ground, shaping themselves into beastly figures lunging towards him with their claws of thick smoke. He fell on the ground surrounded by danger, drowning in his own fear. Was this his death?
A roar of water shattered the air, and a liquid wall slammed into the shadows, scattering them into mist. A figure stepped through what was left of the two beasts closest to Kei. Tall and broad-shouldered, his eyes the color of the bluest seas.
Behind him, swirling ink blazed into the air, forming intricate knots pulsing like veins. The shapes snapped shut around the nearest shadow, binding it mid-lunge, dragging it back into the mist until it finally dissolved. Another figure appeared through the destroyed shadow. Dark hair framed her pale face, and her eyes were as black as liquid onyx.
“Are you hurt?” The boy’s voice was deep and calm as an ocean.
Still shaking, Kei tried to gather himself. “I... I don't know. I didn’t...”
“You’re safe now,” he said with a look still scanning the darkness. “But you shouldn’t wander here alone. This forest... it tests you.”
“Tests? It does more than that. It senses fear and plays with it.” Almost lightheartedly said the mysterious girl, her gaze studied Kei, sharp and unreadable.
“Enough, Velara! Let’s just get him somewhere safe before the shadows return. They wouldn’t be too happy with what we did here.” The boy’s eyes flicked to her, a shadow of irritation crossing his calm face. Velara shrugged and turned around to lead them out of the bushes.
The calm, deep voice spoke again. “I’m Baran, by the way, and this is my sister Velara. We ... look after this forest, in a way. And you are?”
Voice still shaking, Kei answered. “I... I’m Kei”. He felt Velara’s eyes on himself, narrowed with suspicion.
“It’s best to take you to Liora, Kei. She’ll know what to do, and why the Shadow forest claimed you.” Her voice had suddenly become serious, no trace of her teasing smile.
“You didn’t walk here by accident. It seems as if it chose you.”
Baran stepped closer, his calm presence grounding Kei just enough to keep him from freezing entirely out of fright. “We’ll explain more when we reach Liora’s temple. For now, focus on keeping your fear in check and follow us.”
Not having much of a choice, Kei nodded, and the three of them headed through the forest. The translucent leaves above their heads filtered the moonlight, casting a silvery glow on their path. The eerie song was no longer filling the air, and Kei could now clearly hear the wind rustling through the branches, a river flowing nearby, and the hooting of an owl. Kei still felt his body shiver, but the presence of Baran and Velara beside him offered a fragile reassurance. For the first time since arriving, the forest felt alive, not hostile – though danger still lingered in its depths.
The forest began to thin as they climbed. Mist clung low to the ground, and soon the trees gave way to stone. Even the air seemed to have changed – thinner, brighter, trembling with quiet energy. The climb grew steeper. Kei stopped to catch his breath and froze.
The path had ended at the edge of a vast cliff. Beyond it stretched a sea of clouds, faintly glowing under the moonlight. The world below was hidden, but he could still hear the slow, heavy rhythm of waves breaking against unseen cliffs. Just a few steps away, carved directly into the black stone, rose a temple. Tall pillars of pale crystal emerged from the cliffside. At the threshold, a circular mosaic spread across the ground - marble inlaid with quartz and obsidian, forming the image of a sun divided by a dark line through its centre. Statues half-buried in moss, faces eroded by time, guarded the entrance. Threads of light in gold and silver pulsed across the temple’s surface.
Far beyond, through breaks in the mist, lit by the full moon, Kei glimpsed other lights – distant peaks, each crowned with a similar temple glowing faintly against the dark horizon.
“Those are the other Sanctuaries, “ Velara said quietly, following his gaze. “They used to keep a balance between the realms. But most of them have fallen silent.”
They crossed the marble mosaic and entered the temple. A vast chamber opened before them, crowned by a glass dome.
And there, at the altar, stood Liora.
Her hair, silver-white with faint gold strands, fell loosely around her shoulders. She was wearing amber robes shimmering faintly with their own inner glow. On her neck, Kei noticed, hung a pendant of cracked crystal, pulsing like a dying star.
“Liora,” Baran said, bowing his head slightly. “The forest chose again.”
“It has been many cycles since that happened,” she murmured, her voice smooth and melodic. “Tell me, stranger — did the shadows whisper your name before you fell?”
Kei hesitated. “I… don’t know. I just heard— a song.”
At that, a flicker passed over her expression — not surprise, but recognition.
“The Song of Calling,” she said softly. “So, the forest remembers. Then it is not by chance you are here.”
Liora turned away, her gaze drifting toward the veins of light pulsing on the wall behind the altar. “There was once balance in this world”, she began again. “Four forces, bound together – light, shadow, ink, and water. When one rises, another must fall. But now the scales tremble.”
Kei frowned. “What does that have to do with me?”
She smiled kindly. “Everything. The forest does not call without reason.”
“You were brought here,” Liora continued, “because something in you remembers what the rest of us have forgotten. There is a hollow in every light, and you need to learn how to face yours, or it will consume you.”
Kei could hear his heartbeat, he felt nauseous.
“Rest now,” Liora said softly. “Tomorrow, you begin.”
As Baran and Velara led him toward the inner chambers, Kei cast one last glance at Liora standing under the glass dome. For a moment, he thought he saw her reflection in the marble – but it wasn’t moving quite the same way as her.