That wasn’t Kailu’s voice! It seemed to echo inside in my head, like a disembodied whisper but not from him. It made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Kailu didn’t say anything, but he turned around and started walking toward the forest, slow and like he was being pulled by something I couldn’t see. 

“Kailu, stop!” I yelled, running after him, but he didn’t even turn. He just kept walking faster, and before I knew it, he was gone into the trees. 

“Kailu!” Arun shouted, running after him. I followed too, my heart thumping in my chest. I could hear that whisper again, like it was calling us, pushing us to go deeper into the woods. 

“…C-come to me…” 

We ran through the woods, the trees looked spooky with long shadows from the setting sun and fog began to appear. It got darker the further we went, and it was colder too, like the village warmth was all gone. 

I felt my fear getting bigger, my legs feeling heavy. “Where is he going?” I asked, my voice shaking like it wasn’t mine. 

“I don’t know,” Arun said, his face looking like a rock. “But we need to find him. Stay close.” 

The trees got taller, and the woods got even thicker, like we were going into some secret place. All I could hear was the leaves under our feet and the whisper that didn’t stop. We ran for what felt like forever until we came to a little clearing. Right in the middle of it was an old, broken well, its edges all cracked and falling apart. 

We stopped really fast. Kailu was standing right by the well, looking down into its dark depths. His body was swaying like he wasn’t even there, just staring into the deep hole like he was in a trance. 

“Kailu, get away from there!” Arun shouted, but before he could even move, Kailu took a step closer to the well—and he tripped. 

“No!” I screamed, my heart stopping as Kailu fell into the dark. 

Arun ran right up to the edge, looking down into the well. “Kailu!” he shouted, his voice echoing down into the hole. 

I couldn’t breathe. My eyes were stuck on the well, and it looked so deep. It went down forever, all covered in shadows. For a second, everything was quiet. Then, from the deep dark, I heard it again—the whisper. 

“…yes… down here… come find me…” 

Kailu was gone, and I couldn’t move. The voice wrapped around me like it was holding me tight, like it was everywhere. 

Arun didn’t wait. He grabbed a rope from his pack and tied it to a tree nearby. “Seira, stay here,” he told me, his voice serious and urgent. 

I just nodded because I couldn’t say anything. I was too scared to move. Arun tied the rope around his waist and started going down into the well. Each second felt like a thousand, watching him go down, his figure getting smaller and smaller until he was gone, swallowed by the dark. 

------------------------------- 

At the bottom of the well. 

(Kailu’s Pov) 
 
I slowly started regaining consciousness. My eyes blinked open, and I felt dizzy and confused. I was lying on the cold, hard stone floor, and my head hurt really bad. It was like a sharp, stabbing pain in my skull, but there was something else too—something scary. It was like the air was full of something dark and heavy, like it was trying to crush me. I didn’t know what it was, but it made it hard to breathe. 

I tried to sit up, but my body felt shaky and weak. My legs felt like jelly. I looked around, trying to make sense of where I was, and that’s when I saw it. There was this faint red-light way down at the end of a dark tunnel, and it was like a heartbeat. Thump... thump... thump... The glow was weird, like it didn’t belong in the cave at all. It was sickly, too, like a dying fire. The walls were wet, and the glow barely lit anything, but I couldn’t stop staring at it. 

For some strange reason, I started moving towards it. My legs just started walking, like they were doing it all on their own. I wanted to stop, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t even think. My feet stumbled along the rough floor, and I could feel the cold, damp air brushing against my skin. 

When I got to the end of the tunnel, I finally saw it up close. A huge, red crystal was sticking out of the stone, half-buried, like it had been there for centuries. It looked so weird, like it didn’t belong at all. The surface of the crystal was really shiny, like it was covered in oil or something. It reflected the sick light, but not in a good way. The air around it felt thick and heavy, like something ominous was hiding inside it, waiting to come out. 

My hands were shaking, but I reached out to touch it anyway. My fingers were just about to make contact with the cold surface when I heard it. The voice. It was a whisper at first, soft like a breeze, but then it grew louder and louder until it felt like it was shouting in my head. 

It wasn’t even a real voice, just... whispers that sounded so creepy. They were inside my mind, and it was like the whole world was listening, but I couldn’t escape. 

“When I rise again from the ashes of this world... you shall be my vessel...” the voice said, and it felt like it was making my bones shake. I wanted to scream or run, but my body wouldn’t move. It was like I was stuck in place, frozen in fear. 

And then... everything went dark.