Something was wrong.

Thomas felt it in his bones, in the air, in the way the trees leaned toward him, their branches curling like skeletal fingers. The wind carried no sound, only a hollow pressure that pressed against his ears, as if the world itself was holding its breath.

His car sat just ahead, pristine and untouched—impossible. He had crashed. The windshield had shattered. But there it was, headlights off, engine silent, waiting.

And the journal—

It still held his name.

His grip tightened, pulse hammering in his ears. The final entry had changed, rewriting itself before his eyes:

The first seal is broken.

A chill crept through his spine. He had resisted. He hadn’t opened the door. And yet—

Something had escaped.

His throat tightened as he turned to the roadside shrine. The statues wept black, their faces contorted in silent agony. The symbols carved into the wood—once warnings, once barriers—had begun to fade.

Something deeper than fear settled in his chest.

Then—

A whisper.

Not from behind him. Not from the trees.

From inside him.

"Almost free."

His vision blurred. His knees buckled. The world twisted—the sky darkened, the stars shifting into empty sockets, watching.

Then came the pain.

A searing, splitting agony erupted in his chest, knocking the breath from his lungs. He gasped, clawing at his shirt. Beneath his skin, beneath his scar, something moved.

His heartbeat—no longer his own.

"You carried me out, Thomas."

No. No, no, no—

He staggered back, vision swimming, the journal slipping from his grasp. The ink inside swirled, reshaping itself into new words:

The second seal must break.

Only then will the path be revealed.

His breath hitched. No. He had made a mistake coming here. He had been led here.

And now—

Something was using him.

The whisper curled around his thoughts like smoke.

"You must go back, Thomas."

A vision slammed into him.

A room he had never seen—but knew.

A church. Abandoned. Hollow.

The altar, cracked and covered in dust. A crucifix inverted above it. The pews, overturned and broken. And at the center—

A figure.

Veiled. Still.

Waiting.

The vision snapped away.

Thomas gasped, fingers digging into the dirt as he braced himself. His breathing was shallow, erratic. His pulse—a foreign rhythm.

The road stretched before him, endless and dark.

The church.

He didn’t need a map.

He already knew where to go.

And that terrified him more than anything.