Three teenagers slip into an abandoned tower in the forest, chasing a dare and a rumor. Inside, the silence breaks first, then the light disappears.
The forest had gone strangely still, as if it was holding its breath. Marta walked in front, torch clenched so tightly her knuckles ached, while Kuba trailed a step behind with his hood up and his hands shoved deep into his pockets. Lena kept glancing toward the trees, half thrilled and half terrified, as if she expected the dark itself to change its mind and turn them back.
Ahead of them, the tower rose from the edge of the woods like a scar. Black stone. Choked in ivy. Broken windows staring out at the forest. For years, people in town had warned them to stay away from it. For years, they had been told the same stories: strange lights in the upper windows, whispers after sunset, and children who went in and never seemed quite right when they came out.
"It’s just stories," Marta muttered, though her voice sounded thinner than she wanted.
"Then why are you walking so fast?" Lena whispered.
Marta almost said something sharp back, but the iron gate ahead stopped her. It stood half open, swaying a little in the breeze, as if someone had gone through only moments before.
Kuba stared at it. "That wasn't open before."
Lena’s grin flickered, uncertain now. "So someone’s already inside."
They moved closer, the torchlight sliding over the tower wall. Marta saw lines scratched into the stone near the entrance, too deep to be random marks. She ran her fingertips across them and jerked her hand back at once. The rock was cold enough to sting.
Inside, the air changed. It was damp and stale, smelling of dust and old rain. Their footsteps rang out too loudly against the stone floor, bouncing up the narrow shaft of the tower and returning to them in broken echoes. Marta swept the torch around the circular chamber. The stairs curved upward into darkness, one chipped step after another disappearing out of sight.
Then they heard it.
Not a creak. Not wind.
A whisper.
All three froze.
Kuba swallowed. "Did you hear that?"
The whisper came again, faint but clear, from somewhere above them. Marta lifted the torch higher, its beam trembling over the stairwell. For one second she caught the edge of movement on the landing above, and her pulse slammed hard against her ribs.
A light flared around the bend in the stairs.
Someone was coming down.