Chapter 117: The Vessel and the Void
Albert woke with his back damp and cold. Moonlight filtered through the cracks of the shuttered window, casting long, trembling shadows on the floor. He was lying in the middle of the room—on the stone, not the bed. Janelle was nowhere in sight.
His hands trembled.
He looked down.
A mark glowed faintly on his palm—twisted, unfamiliar, yet deeply unsettling. Not drawn, but seared into the flesh as if branded. He rubbed it hard, but it didn't fade. It pulsed once. Then stopped.
He didn't scream. He didn't panic.
He simply whispered, "He's close."
---
Janelle had gone to the temple ruins, where she knew Elara and Ariella spent their evenings now, buried in scrolls and whispered fears. She hadn't told Albert. She hadn't planned to, either.
The mist clung to her skin as she stepped into the circle of firelight.
Elara looked up, startled. "Janelle?"
"I need your help," Janelle said, breathless. "Something's wrong with Albert."
Ariella rose to her feet. "What happened?"
"He's developed a mark," Janelle said quickly. "It's on his palm. Burnt-looking, but it wasn't there before. It's like it just... appeared."
Elara's eyes narrowed. "Describe it."
"Twisted," Janelle replied. "Not a cut or a bruise. More like a symbol—like the ones we've seen carved around the village. But it was glowing."
Ariella and Elara exchanged a glance, their unease sharpening into quiet dread.
"Show us," Ariella said. "Now."
---
Meanwhile, in a corner of the village, the farmer who had taken Johnny in sat by his hearth, arms crossed tightly over his chest. The boy was asleep—or pretending to be—in the back room. The house was too quiet. Even the fire crackled with hesitation.
He stared at a small bundle wrapped in cloth beside him on the table. Inside: the lifeless body of a sparrow that had fallen dead just outside the boy's window. It had been whole. Unwounded. But its eyes—glassy, black—had stared straight at the boy as it died.
The man finally rose and slipped out into the dark. The dread in his chest outweighed the cold.
---
"He watches things die," the farmer told Elara and Ariella an hour later, his voice low, urgent. "I didn't want to believe it, but the birds, the cow, the crops... even the sky feels wrong when he stares at it."
The girls listened in silence. Ariella asked, "Have you seen any symbols?"
He nodded, pulled up his sleeve, and showed them his forearm. A faint spiral, barely visible, shimmered beneath the skin like an old scar lit from within. "I woke up with this yesterday. I never cut myself there."
Elara's breath caught. "It's the mirror. The other half."
Ariella whispered, "He's not just a vessel. He's reflecting the first shadow."
The farmer blinked. "What... does that mean?"
"It means he might not be the cause—but he's the key," Ariella said. "And if we're not careful, he'll open something we're not ready for."
---
Johnny sat alone in the field that morning, a patch of brown earth surrounding him like a wound in the grass. The sun was trying to rise, but the clouds had turned thick and gray. Dew clung to everything but him.
He watched a butterfly flit past.
It landed on a flower.
He tilted his head and stared at it.
The butterfly twitched, spasmed, then dropped, wings folding inward like paper.
Johnny didn't smile. He didn't cry. He simply stared at it.
Then he turned his gaze to a puddle forming nearby.
A face stared back at him. But it wasn't his.
Its eyes were wider, its mouth stretched into an unsettling smile. It mimicked his movements—but lagged, ever so slightly, like a puppet catching up with its master.
Johnny leaned closer.
"Why are you inside me?" he whispered.
The reflection opened its mouth and whispered the same thing.
Then it blinked—and the boy in the puddle didn't.
Johnny stood quickly and walked away. But the image lingered a moment longer, smiling with teeth too sharp to belong to a child.
---
Albert sat at the river's edge, legs crossed, eyes vacant.
The world moved around him. Insects hummed, fish jumped, wind danced with the grass.
But he felt none of it.
Instead, he listened to something else. A whisper under the current. A voice only he could hear.
You were the first, but not the last.
He blinked hard. "No."
He sees you now.
He jerked upright. "No!"
Janelle came running from the path above, breathless. "Are you alright?"
Albert didn't answer at first.
Then he looked at her—really looked. "He knows who I am. I saw him."
"Who?"
"The other one."
---
Back in their shared quarters, Ariella spread out the Queens' scrolls once more. The fire burned low, shadows dancing across the parchment.
"This symbol here," she said, pointing to a circular pattern etched between verses, "it's meant to contain mirrors. Not show them."
Elara leaned over, reading the passage beneath.
"'The vessel unaware becomes the key. The mirror unaware becomes the door. When the two behold each other, the gate shall stir.'"
Ariella whispered, "If Albert sees him… if they recognize each other…"
Elara finished, "Then the real shadow might come through."
They looked at each other in heavy silence, knowing time was slipping.
---
Janelle returned home that night and found Albert already asleep. Or so she thought.
He was murmuring something under his breath.
At first, it was incoherent.
But then, words formed.
He was left in the woods. The tree drank his sorrow. The vessel was chosen.
Janelle stepped back, a chill creeping up her spine.
The sigil on Albert's palm glowed faintly beneath his curled fingers.
---
That same night, Johnny sat on the roof of the farmer's home.
He stared up at the moon, eyes reflecting silver light.
Beneath his breath, he whispered a name.
It was not his.
It didn't belong to anyone in the village.
But the wind stopped when he said it.
And the earth trembled faintly in reply.
---
Albert woke gasping.
This time, he remembered the dream.
The hallway of mirrors. The boy behind the glass. The crack.
And the moment the boy saw him—truly saw him—Albert had felt a deep tearing sensation in his chest. As if something that had been sealed was beginning to split.
He stumbled to the window.
The wind had gone still.
And there—through the mist—stood Johnny.
Half-shadowed, motionless.
Watching.
Albert whispered, "He's here."