Deep in the middle of a dark forest, the sound of children laughing and playing filled the air. But suddenly, a huge, scary creature covered in shadows appeared. It was like something from a bad dream. The kids screamed as it came closer.
BANG! The dream ended.
A loud voice shouted,
"Cuco! Wake up! It's eight o'clock! You're going to be late for school!"
Cuco sat up quickly, his clothes wet with sweat. His heart was beating fast. He could still see the forest, the monster, and the scared children in his mind. But one thing stayed clear—a glowing mark on his hand.
As Cuco ran to school, he kept thinking about the dream. It felt too real. At school, his friend leaned over and whispered, "You had the dream again, didn't you?"
Cuco looked at him. "How do you know?"
"You've had that dream for ten years," his friend said quietly. "But this time... something feels different."
Before Cuco could speak, the teacher walked in. "Sit down, class is starting!"
Cuco tried to listen, but his eyes kept going to his hand. The mark from his dream was really there. His friend saw it too. "That's the mark," he said. "I saw it in my dream last night."
After class, Cuco asked, "What's going on with us?"
Before his friend could answer, another student walked over. His name was Linux, the captain of the basketball team. "Cuco, we only have two weeks left before the big game. We need you to practice."
"I... I don't know if I can," Cuco said. "Something strange is happening."
"You're part of the team," Linux said. "You can think about that stuff later."
But Cuco wasn't sure. The dreams, the mark, the strange feeling inside him—it all felt too real to ignore.
Another classmate laughed. "Cuco, stop thinking about weird dreams. Basketball is what matters."
Cuco looked down at his glowing hand, then back at them. "You don't get it. Something is coming. And I think... it's coming for me."
Cuco walked home slowly after school. The sky was cloudy, and a strange wind blew through the streets, making the trees shake and whisper. He kept staring at the mark on his hand—it was glowing again, just a little, like it was alive.
Suddenly, Cuco stopped. He felt something behind him. He turned around fast—nothing was there. The street was empty. But he knew he wasn't alone.
That night, Cuco couldn't sleep. He kept hearing the sound of leaves rustling outside his window. At midnight, he sat up in bed. The mark on his hand was glowing brighter now, pulsing like a heartbeat.
Then, he heard it—a deep growl, coming from the forest behind his house.
Cuco's body froze. The sound was the same as in his dream.
He grabbed a flashlight and sneaked out of the house. The night air was cold. The forest looked darker than usual, like the trees were closing in.
As he walked deeper into the woods, the growling got louder. He saw shadows moving between the trees. Something was watching him. Then he saw it—two glowing eyes, staring straight at him from the darkness.
The beast from his dream stepped out. It was real.
Cuco wanted to run, but his legs wouldn't move. The beast growled again, and the mark on his hand lit up like fire.
Suddenly, a voice whispered in his head:
"You are chosen. You must remember who you are."
Then, everything went black.
Chapter 2: The Whisper in the Woods
The next morning, Cuco sat quietly at the breakfast table, staring into his cereal like it held answers. His mom talked in the background, something about laundry, something about school—but her words felt distant, like they were coming from underwater.
That dream—or whatever it was—kept playing over and over in his head. The growl. The eyes. The mark on his hand, which now had faded into nothing, leaving his skin smooth like nothing ever happened.
He checked it again, just to be sure.
Still nothing.
Maybe he was losing it.
At school, Cuco barely heard what the teachers said. His friend—Tariq—watched him carefully from the next seat, like he knew something Cuco didn't.
"Did anything weird happen last night?" Cuco finally whispered.
Tariq paused. "Why?"
"I... I thought I saw something. In the woods."
Tariq leaned in, eyes narrowing. "You went out there?"
Cuco nodded slowly. "I couldn't sleep. I heard... something. So I followed it."
Tariq's voice dropped to a whisper. "You shouldn't have done that."
Cuco frowned. "Why not?"
But Tariq didn't answer. He just looked at Cuco's hand. "Is the mark still there?"
Cuco's eyes widened. "How do you know about that?"
Tariq gave a tight smile. "You're not the only one having dreams."
The bell rang before Cuco could say more.
The rest of the day passed like a blur. Cuco kept thinking about what Tariq had said. If they were both dreaming the same thing, it couldn't be just a dream, right?
That night, Cuco sat on his bed, staring out the window at the tree line behind his house. The forest was still. Too still. Even the crickets were quiet.
He turned off the light and lay down, but sleep wouldn't come. Around midnight, something clicked.
Not outside.
Inside.
It was the window latch.
Cuco sat up fast.
The window was open.
But he hadn't opened it.
A soft breeze rolled in, and with it... a whisper.
Very faint, like someone speaking from deep underground:
"Come back..."
Cuco froze.
The wind died.
The whisper stopped.
But his hand was glowing again.
Chapter 3: The Unseen Circle
Cuco didn't sleep the rest of the night.
By the time morning came, his eyes were red, and his thoughts were tangled like knots. He kept thinking about that whisper. About the open window. About the way the wind seemed to know his name.
He didn't tell his mom. What would he even say?
At school, everything looked the same—but something felt off.
He noticed the halls were quieter. People weren't making as much noise as usual. And when Cuco passed a group of students by the lockers, they suddenly went silent. Stared at him.
Then looked away just as fast.
Tariq met him by the classroom door. "We need to talk. After school."
"About the dreams?" Cuco asked.
"Not just dreams," Tariq said, his voice low. "There's more you need to see."
The rest of the day crawled by, the air thick with tension. Even Linux—the usually confident, loud basketball captain—seemed distracted, watching Cuco from the corner of his eye like he was something dangerous.
When school ended, Tariq led Cuco through the back hallways, past the old storage rooms no one used anymore.
"Where are we going?" Cuco asked.
"There's a door," Tariq said. "It's always been there. But only some of us can see what's behind it."
They reached the end of the hall. There was nothing there but a wall and a dusty janitor's closet.
Tariq walked right up to it, placed his hand on the closet door... and the air around them shimmered, like heat off asphalt.
Then the wall behind the closet shifted—just slightly—and a thin, hidden door appeared. Almost like it had been waiting for them.
"Welcome to the Circle," Tariq whispered.
The door creaked open.
Inside was a small, dark room lit by flickering candles. Symbols were painted on the walls—some Cuco recognized from his dream. Others made his skin crawl just looking at them.
Three other students stood in the room already—students Cuco had seen around school but never spoken to. They all had one thing in common:
The mark.
Glowing faintly on each of their hands.
A girl with short black hair stepped forward. "You saw it, didn't you? The Beast."
Cuco nodded slowly.
"Then it's starting," she said. "The seal is weakening. And the one who woke it... is already among us."
Chapter 4: The One Who Woke It
Cuco's heartbeat thundered in his ears as he stepped into the candlelit room. Shadows clung to the stone walls, shifting and stretching with every flicker of flame. The air was thick—hot, yes—but it carried something more. Something ancient. Watching.
Behind him, Tariq eased the hidden door shut. The faint click echoed like a verdict.
"You're not alone anymore," said the girl with black hair. Her voice was calm, almost too calm, but her eyes—sharp and ember-bright—told a different story. They were eyes that had seen things, survived things. "My name is Nox. And we've all been marked."
Cuco looked around. A tall boy with round glasses gave a quiet nod. Next to him, a short girl in a faded hoodie raised a hand in a wary greeting. They didn't just look different—they felt different. Like each of them carried something buried beneath the skin. A weight. A secret.
Nox gestured toward the center of the room, where a battered leather-bound book lay open on a stone pedestal. "The dreams. The mark. The creature. They're all part of something older than us. An ancient chain. A cycle. It's happened before. Every time, it ends the same way."
Cuco took a shaky step forward. "What is the Beast? Why me? Why now?"
The boy with glasses answered, voice quiet but steady. "It's not just a beast. It's a breaker. A guardian of thresholds. It wakes when the balance between our world and something else begins to crack."
The girl in the hoodie added, barely above a whisper, "And you saw it first. That means the crack is widening. You're the Key."
Nox stepped closer. "Which also means they will come looking for you."
"They?" Cuco's voice came out as a rasp.
Tariq's tone turned grim. "The Hollow Ones. Not fully beast, not fully human. Shadows wrapped in human skin. They're already here. Inside the town."
A loud bang echoed from somewhere beyond the room.
Everyone froze.
Footsteps. Slow. Heavy. Just on the other side of the wall.
Nox turned sharply to Cuco. "Did someone follow you?"
"No—I came straight from class, I swear—"
The candle flames danced violently. A cold draft curled through the room like a whisper. The lights buzzed.
Then—
Knock. Knock.
Two slow raps on the hidden door.
Silence.
A voice came next. Crooked and wrong, like a puppet mimicking speech it didn't understand.
"Cuuu-coooo…"
Cuco felt his blood go cold.
"You're not supposed to remember, little spark," the voice hissed. "But now… you've seen too much."
The wall trembled.
Nox's eyes widened. She pointed toward the far corner. "We have to go. Now. There's another exit—through the tunnels."
Tariq grabbed Cuco's arm. "Come on. We don't have much time."
Cuco hesitated.
Long enough to hear one last whisper through the wall.
"You can't run forever, Key. We'll find you… even in your dreams."
And then they ran, fleeing into the dark below.
Chapter 5: Echoes of the First Seal
The tunnel beneath the school stretched like the throat of some sleeping beast—narrow, damp, and breathing the scent of earth, stone, and secrets long buried. Cuco's footsteps pounded behind the others, the sound swallowed quickly by the walls as they ran deeper, farther—away from the voice, from the hidden door, from the thing that had whispered his name like a curse.
Torches flared to life as they passed, one by one, flames leaping up as if the tunnel knew. As if it was waiting.
"Where does this even go?" Cuco called out, breath catching.
"To the Archive," Nox replied over her shoulder. "It's buried beneath the old churchyard. That's where the truth is. The records of what's been, and what's coming."
A sharp turn led them into a vast, circular chamber. The ceiling arched like a cathedral dome, carved from stone blackened with age. Candles drifted in the air, their flames dancing without wind, illuminating rows upon rows of ancient tomes nestled into the walls like bones in an ossuary.
At the center stood a pedestal, cracked down the middle like a wound. Upon it rested a slab of jet-black stone, its surface webbed with glowing crimson veins that pulsed slowly, like a heartbeat.
Nox stepped forward, her voice hushed. "The First Seal."
Cuco stared. The stone called to him—quietly, insistently. The faint red glow matched the mark on his hand. He stepped closer, drawn to it.
Tariq rested a steadying hand on his shoulder. "It remembers. The seal stores echoes from the last time it shattered. Look, Cuco. See."
Cuco reached out. The moment his fingers touched the stone, the world shifted.
The Archive vanished.
He stood in the remnants of a burning village, ash swirling like snow. The air was thick with smoke and sorrow. Screams rang out—raw, distant. Fires devoured the rooftops. And in the shadows, things moved. Some shaped like beasts. Others like people… missing their faces.
In the midst of the chaos stood a boy—no older than Cuco, but with eyes lit like coals and a mark burning bright on his palm.
The boy stood alone. Holding the line. Not with blades, but with sheer force of will. Power surged from the ground, the sky, from deep within him—twisting into flame and fury.
Cuco could only watch as the boy faced something massive and monstrous—a creature rising from a jagged rift in the earth, crowned with horns and cloaked in shadow.
The two forces clashed.
Then, in a heartbeat, it all unraveled.
The boy's scream echoed through the smoke, and the creature laughed—a sound like stone grinding bone.
The world cracked in two.
Then—darkness.
Cuco fell backward, gasping, ripped from the vision as if torn from a dream. The Archive returned around him.
"What… what was that?" he whispered, shaking.
Nox's voice was quiet. "The last Key."
"He failed," Tariq added solemnly. "The seal shattered. That's when the Circle was formed. To stop it from happening again. To find the next Key when the time returned."
Cuco looked down at his hand. The mark was glowing now—brighter than before.
"It's me," he said, barely audible. "I'm the next one."
As if responding to his words, the chamber gave a faint tremor. Dust drifted from the ceiling. The veins in the black stone flared brighter.
Then came a voice. Soft, ancient, and not quite human.
"The Key must choose… Light or Shadow. Open the gate… or seal it forever."
The words hung in the air like smoke.
All eyes turned to Cuco.
The mark on his hand blazed to life—red, hot, alive.
And the First Seal pulsed again.