That night, she pulled the wooden box from beneath the floorboards again.
But this time—
There was something new inside.

A folded scrap of parchment, wedged beneath the false bottom.

She hadn’t put it there.

She opened it slowly, carefully.
The ink was deep blue.
The handwriting—spidery and old.

It read:

The frost does not mark the weak.
It marks the chosen.

And beneath it—

A spiral.

Burned into the parchment.
Still faintly pulsing.

That night, the spiral followed her into her dreams.

Elle stood in the school hallway.
But it wasn’t the school she knew.

The walls were longer.
Darker.
They hummed with a sound like breathing.

Lockers lined both sides. But they pulsed, as if alive. Some had frost creeping from their hinges. Others dripped black ink from vents that blinked like eyes.

She didn’t move.
Couldn’t.

Ahead, the hallway split.

One path led to light.
The other—

A stairwell she’d never seen before.

Spiraling down.

Down like a drain.
Down like a choice.

The spiral.

She stepped forward, drawn by something she couldn’t name.

Her bare feet made no sound.

A cold wind blew up from the staircase—
Carrying a voice.

It sounded like her.
And not her.

Elowen…

She took another step.

The lights above her shattered.

Darkness.

Then—
A different place.

A mirror room.

Thousands of reflections stared back at her.
From every angle.

Some smiled.
Some screamed.
A few wept blood.

And one—

One didn’t move at all.

It stood perfectly still as Elle reached out, her heart stuttering.

She lifted her hand.

So did it.

But when she turned to look behind her—
The reflection kept facing forward.

That’s when she knew.

That wasn’t a reflection.

That was a memory.

Or a warning.

A spiral bloomed across the mirrors—
Cracking the glass like ice.

The sound of shattering was deafening.

She fell—

—and woke up gasping.

Sheets tangled.
Heart slamming against her ribs.

She looked across the room.

Her mirror was fogged.

Not from steam.

From breath.

She grabbed her sketchpad and tried to draw what she’d seen.

The endless hallway.
The bleeding mirror.
The staircase into frost.

But the lines wouldn’t stay still.

The spiral kept redrawing itself.

When she blinked, the pages had shifted.

The spiral wasn’t just a shape anymore.

It was a door.

And someone was knocking.

Not literally. Not yet.
But she felt it.

A pressure at the back of her skull.
A pulse behind her eyes.

An invitation she couldn’t decline anymore.

Something was waking.

Something that had slept for a very long time.

Something that had her name—
and would not let her forget it.