The icy wind howled through the narrow streets of Blackthorn as Eleanor Thorncroft stepped out of the estate, her breath curling into ghostly tendrils in the frigid air. Lena followed close behind, clutching a lantern, its flickering light casting elongated shadows that danced along the cobblestones. The sisters were headed to the Obelisk, compelled by an unspoken urgency that neither could fully explain.

“This is madness,” Lena muttered, tightening her scarf. “After what happened to the man in the square, why would we even think about going back there?”

Eleanor glanced over her shoulder, her expression grim. “Because something’s happening, Lena. Something we can’t ignore. If we don’t figure out what it is, we’ll be caught blind when it comes for us.”

Lena’s footsteps faltered, but she quickly caught up. “‘It?’ You’re speaking like the Obelisk is alive.”

“Maybe it is,” Eleanor replied, her voice barely audible.

As they turned the corner, the Obelisk loomed ahead, a monolithic silhouette against the pale moonlight. It stood untouched in the center of the square, its black surface absorbing the faint luminescence of the winter sky. A faint hum resonated in the air, growing louder with each step they took toward it. The square was empty, eerily so, as if the town itself was holding its breath.

Lena hesitated, gripping Eleanor’s arm. “Do you hear that?”

Eleanor nodded. The hum wasn’t just a sound; it was a feeling, a vibration that seemed to resonate in their bones. She stepped closer to the Obelisk, her gloved hand hovering over its surface. The symbols etched into the stone began to glow faintly, pulsing like a heartbeat. She froze as a voice, barely a whisper, filled her mind.

Shattered reflections reveal the truth.

She recoiled, stumbling backward. “Did you hear that?”

Lena shook her head, her face pale. “Hear what?”

Eleanor didn’t answer. Instead, she reached into her coat and pulled out her mother’s journal. Flipping through its worn pages, she found a sketch of the Obelisk and the symbols that adorned it. Her mother’s notes were cryptic, but one line stood out: The mirror does not lie, but it does not show all.

“A mirror,” Eleanor murmured.

“What?” Lena asked, peering over her shoulder.

“I think the Obelisk is… showing us something. Or hiding something.” She looked around the square, her eyes narrowing. “We need to test something.”

Before Lena could protest, Eleanor pulled out a small hand mirror from her satchel. It was an heirloom, its silver frame intricately carved with thorn motifs. Holding it up to the Obelisk, she angled it to catch the faint light of the symbols. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, the mirror’s surface rippled as if it were liquid, and an image began to form.

Lena gasped, clutching Eleanor’s arm. “What is that?”

The mirror showed a distorted version of the square. The Obelisk was there, but so were figures cloaked in shadow, their forms flickering in and out of focus. They stood in a circle around the Obelisk, their hands raised as if in supplication. The symbols on the stone glowed brighter in the reflection, their patterns shifting and coalescing into something almost legible.

Eleanor’s grip on the mirror tightened. “They’re performing some kind of ritual. Look at the symbols—they’re forming words.”

“Can you read them?” Lena whispered, her voice trembling.

Eleanor squinted, the symbols in the reflection twisting into a language she didn’t recognize but somehow understood. “The gate to the hollow shall open when the shadow consumes the light,” she read aloud.

The moment the words left her lips, the mirror cracked, the sound echoing through the silent square. The reflection vanished, replaced by Eleanor’s wide-eyed face staring back at her. She lowered the mirror, her hand shaking.

“What does it mean?” Lena asked, her voice barely audible.

Eleanor didn’t answer. Her mind was racing, piecing together fragments of her mother’s research and the events of the past days. The symbols, the whispers, the rituals—they all pointed to something ancient and powerful. Something that was awakening.

Back at the Thorncroft estate, the sisters sat by the fire, the journal and the cracked mirror laid out on the table between them. Eleanor poured over the notes, her eyes darting from one page to the next.

“This mention of the ‘gate’… Mother wrote about gates in her early entries,” she said, tapping a page. “But she never explained what they were. Just that they were tied to the Obelisk and something she called the Hollow One.”

Lena shuddered. “The Hollow One. That’s what the man in the square was talking about before he…” She trailed off, unable to finish the sentence.

Eleanor nodded. “It’s connected. All of it. The Obelisk, the symbols, the whispers. But why here? Why now?”

Lena hugged her knees to her chest. “Do you think Mother knew?”

Eleanor hesitated. “I think she suspected. Maybe that’s why she disappeared. She was trying to stop it.”

Lena’s eyes filled with tears. “Do you think she’s still alive?”

Eleanor reached over, squeezing her sister’s hand. “I don’t know. But I promise we’ll find out.”

That night, Eleanor couldn’t sleep. The words from the mirror echoed in her mind: The gate to the hollow shall open when the shadow consumes the light. She rose from bed and went to the library, lighting a lantern and pulling out every book her mother had ever owned. Hours passed as she sifted through the texts, her eyes burning with exhaustion.

Finally, she found it. A single passage in an ancient tome, written in the same cryptic script as the symbols on the Obelisk. The translation was rough, but it spoke of a place where the barriers between worlds were thin, where shadows could consume the light and gates could be opened to other realms. It warned of the Hollow One, a being neither living nor dead, whose arrival would herald the end of one age and the beginning of another.

Eleanor’s blood ran cold. The warnings weren’t just legends. They were prophecies.

As she sat there, the lantern flickered, casting strange shadows on the walls. She glanced up, her heart pounding. For a moment, she thought she saw a figure standing in the doorway, its form dark and featureless. She blinked, and it was gone.

“I’m losing my mind,” she whispered, but deep down, she knew it wasn’t her imagination. The shadows were alive, watching and waiting.

She closed the book and made her way back to her room, her mind racing. If the prophecies were true, then the Obelisk wasn’t just a relic. It was a beacon, a gateway. And something was trying to come through.

As she lay in bed, the whispers returned, louder this time. They spoke of shadows and light, of gates and endings. And in the distance, she thought she heard the faint hum of the Obelisk, calling to her.

Eleanor’s resolve hardened. Whatever was coming, she would face it. She had no choice. For the sake of Blackthorn, and for the memory of her mother, she would uncover the truth.

And she would be ready.