The forest air was thick—heavy with the smell of old blood and crumbling stone. Shadows slithered across the ruins of the monastery, stretching too far, shifting when Lena blinked. The Last Witness stood tall by the altar—gaunt and trembling, its fingertips tipped with sharp bone quills that glinted in the sickly moonlight. The book lay between them. It wasn't just a book anymore. It was alive. Its cover had twisted into a mix of flesh and leather, the ouroboros now tangled with a stitched mouth. Eyes sewn shut.
"Which one is the liar?"
The words oozed from the pages, thick and black, hissing as they hit the ground.
Lena's heartbeat slammed in her chest. Three figures surrounded her, their bodies flickering between corpses and phantoms:
- The receptionist, throat sliced from ear to ear, calmly plucking at the wound like playing a harp.
- The taxi driver, chest split open, lungs still rising and falling with wheezing breaths.
- And Mira—or something wearing Mira—smiling too wide, her teeth sharp like needles.
But Mira was dead.
Wasn't she?
Lena remembered the hotel room—the scream, the tear of flesh, the lights going out. But the book had never shown her a body. Just a news headline. And the book… it told truths wrapped in lies.
The thing that looked like Mira licked her lips, tongue blackened and cracked. "Poor Lena," she purred. "Always so slow to figure it out."
Her grandfather's voice echoed in her mind: Don't trust the dead.
But so did the monk's warning—the scribe who first trapped the shadow god in this cursed book. His journal had said: "The Witness wears faces like robes. It feeds on doubt."
Lena's hand twitched toward the rusted dagger on the ground. Salt. Vervain. Something might still protect her.
Think.
The receptionist had died after Lena gave her name to the book. The driver—his death was already printed in tomorrow's news. But Mira…
Mira's death had never been confirmed.
The False Mira stepped closer, claws growing from her fingers. "Tick-tock," she whispered. "The Witness doesn't wait forever."
Behind her, the monastery's cracked walls shifted like they were breathing. Dark puddles gathered in the corners, as if the stones themselves were remembering.
Another line from the monk's journal echoed: "The walls have ears. The stones remember."
Lena clenched the salt pouch in her fist.
Burn the liar's tongue.
She moved fast. Threw the salt at Mira's feet.
It hit with a hiss—and sizzled.
The creature screamed as the salt burned through her face. The skin peeled away, and what lay beneath was a nightmare—ink and teeth, a stitched-up void where a face should be, eyes blank and endless.
"LIAR," Lena shouted.
The Witness laughed, low and wet. The book's pages rippled. New words bled into the parchment:
SACRIFICE ACCEPTED.
Mira's body shook violently, joints snapping like brittle branches. She collapsed into a puddle of black sludge. The other figures faded like smoke, their empty stares locked on Lena until the last second.
Silence.
Then the book turned another page.
Fresh ink spread across the parchment:
KEEPER'S TRIAL: NIGHT TWO
Sacrifices Remaining: 1
Time Left: 3 hours
Clue: "Burn the liar's tongue."
Lena's stomach twisted. The monk's journal had warned about this. The first Keeper had cut out his own tongue to keep the shadow god's name hidden. Was that what it wanted?
Her phone buzzed.
A message. From her grandfather's number:
"They're coming. The monastery's walls have ears."
A deep crack split the stone altar. Black veins spread through it like spiderwebs. Fingers—skeletal, twitching—pushed up through the floor.
The Witness leaned closer. Its stitched mouth twitched.
"One last sacrifice," it whispered. "Will it be you... or the one who sent you here?"
Then the book glowed.
A name appeared that made Lena's blood run cold:
MIRA SOKOLOV.
Alive.
And from deep in the woods, a scream broke the night.
Lena knew that scream.
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