The deer didn’t run. They stood still, watching me as if they’d been waiting all along. What felt like a quiet, beautiful moment shifted when one stepped forward and dropped something at my feet — a locket wrapped with symbols that made my chest tighten. A message meant for “the one who is chosen.” That night, something in the woods woke up, and it hasn’t stopped following me.

The locket was colder than it should have been, its weight wrong in my palm. The symbols seemed to move when I stared too long, as if rearranging themselves into a language I once knew but had forgotten. The warning on the parchment echoed in my mind: the truth is not safe, the truth is not gentle. This wasn’t a gift — it was a test.

After that, the world felt slightly out of place. Lights flickered when I traced the symbols. My phone glitched whenever I tried to photograph the locket. Deer tracks appeared outside my window overnight, only to vanish before morning, like proof that something was watching.

Every trail I followed led to the same whispered name: The Veil. A boundary. A secret. A promise. I don’t yet know what waits beyond it — only that the signs keep appearing, and I’m still following.