Lena, Michal, and David find a strange amber portal hidden deep in the Yew Forest, where old rumours suddenly feel dangerously real. Something on the other side is already moving toward them.
The first frost had silvered the edge of October, and the Yew Forest stood black and silent beyond the last houses on the outskirts of town. Lena, Michal, and David followed the narrow path under bare branches and a ceiling of amber leaves, their torch beams shaking over roots, stones, and the wet shine of moss.
People in town avoided this place after dark. They said animals vanished here. They said you could hear footsteps where no one walked. Lena had laughed at those stories earlier that afternoon. Now, with mist sliding between the trunks and every sound seeming too close, she wished she had kept laughing.
"Tell me you hear that," she said, slowing to a stop.
Michal lifted a hand. Ahead of them, under the hush of the trees, something hummed. Not loudly. Just enough to make the air feel charged, like a live wire hidden in the dark.
David angled his torch toward the sound. "Probably a fence," he said, but his voice had gone thin.
They pushed through a curtain of ferns into a small clearing and stopped dead.
In the centre of the clearing hovered a dome of amber light, smooth and liquid, suspended above the damp earth as if the forest itself had opened an eye. Threads of gold moved through it in slow ripples, casting warm light across the moss and the twisted roots around it. Lena stared, unable to breathe properly.
"That is not possible," she whispered.
The dome pulsed once, and a faint sound came from inside it - a voice, or something that only wanted to sound like one.
David took one step forward. The light reacted at once, flashing bright enough to make them all blink. Michal turned to the others, pale now, his mouth half open as if he were about to speak and had forgotten the words.
Then something moved behind the amber surface.
A shadow crossed it in a streak of motion, too fast to see clearly, and the dome shivered as if whatever was inside had noticed them first. The light split for an instant, and a figure began to emerge from within it, its face still hidden in the glare.