The day began with a strange silence.
In the village, the parrots did not sing. The orchids were closed, as if they had forgotten the sun. The merchants exchanged uneasy glances and the children refused to go out to play.
Gabriel opened his eyes, drawn by an unusual smell in the air. It wasn't smoke. It wasn't rain coming. It was an unfamiliar scent: damp, ferrous. Like blood and broken roots.
"Mum... what's in the air?" he asked from his room.
Lauren replied calmly, but her voice trembled slightly.
"I don't know, love. But the birds are gone."
They went downstairs together. Anthony was already at the emergency radio, turning the knobs.
"No signal from the neighbouring villages," he said. "Not even a beep."
Shortly afterwards, Clara appeared in the doorway. Her face was tense, her hands trembling.
"Gabriel... come with me. Now. To the square."
Gabriel and his parents followed her. Isabelle was already there, next to Zachariah. Some elderly people were staring at the mud at the edge of the fountain, pointing at it with stiff fingers.
In the mud were footprints, but they did not belong to any animal. Not hooves. Not paws. Not feet.
Elongated shapes, with thin claws, drawn in a symmetry... too perfect. Intentional.
"They're back," Zaccaria murmured, bending down. "They're the precursors."
"Forerunners of what?" asked Gabriel.
"Of disorder. When the invisible is hungry... and knocks on the door."
Suddenly, the village walls shook. An unbearable smell of sulphur filled the air.
A flash of lightning. Then another.
Not from the sky.
From the well. The same well where Gabriel had hidden a thousand times as a child. The stones shook, one after the other, as if shaken by an underground laugh.
"Back!" cried Clara, protecting Isabelle with her arm.
A jet exploded from the well. Not light, but inverted light: black in the centre, edged with pulsating red. It rose like a geyser. The air became thick and h , and words that no one spoke echoed in everyone's minds:
"Come... Everything that is hidden will come to light... but it will not be light that reveals it."
An elderly man collapsed, clutching his ears. A woman spoke in an unknown language. The children cried in unison.
Gabriel stood still. He felt that power seeking him out.
Zaccaria approached him, speaking in a low voice:
"This is a gateway, not an attack. They want to observe you, Gabriel. To measure you.
"What if we don't resist?"
"Then they will use the opening to enter."
Clara gathered a handful of earth, traced a symbol in it and threw it towards the well.
The glow flickered. It screamed. Or rather, it made people's teeth chatter, as if a scream had entered their skulls. Then it vanished. It didn't go out: it rolled back, like a reverse flame, sucked into the darkness of the stone.
Only an unreal silence remained.
"It's not over," said Clara.
"No," replied Gabriel. "I think it's just begun."
The village gradually came back to life, as if after an eclipse. But no one dared to say what they had really seen.
Gabriel turned around: his parents stood motionless and terrified among the crowd. Lauren clutched the lapels of her jacket as if to defend herself. Anthony held the emergency radio as if it were an unloaded weapon.
"Let's go home," said Anthony, leaving no room for argument.
No one spoke on the way home. Only the sound of footsteps on the gravel. Only the lonely call of a toucan. Reality was heavier than the air itself.
As soon as they entered, Lauren slammed the door shut. She sat down at the table, looking at her son with eyes she had never had before.
"What was that thing?" she asked, her voice breaking.
Anthony sat down next to her.
"Tell us, Gabriel. You're changing. We can see it. But that... that was beyond explanation."
Gabriel looked down, his hands clasped together.
"Things have been happening for a while. I don't understand them either. But today, there... it was as if they were looking for me. As if I were already fighting. A war I didn't choose."
Lauren covered her mouth, holding back tears.
"You're our son and we love you," she whispered. "But at this point... I don't know who you really are anymore. What are we going to do?"
Gabriel stood up and walked over to the window. The sun was shining high in the sky. The trees seemed to breathe slowly. As if they knew. As if they were waiting.
"I don't know yet," he said. "But maybe... I'll find out soon."
******
I couldn't sleep that night.
The ceiling seemed very far away, as if my room had become a box open to the black sky. No stars. Only silence. A tense silence, like the moment before an earthquake.
I felt empty and full at the same time. Empty because I had no answers. Full of questions that were too big.
Who am I really?
Why are they looking for me?
What do they want me to become?
The questions frightened me. But more than the questions... the answers frightened me.
I thought of my parents, their love broken by terror. Of Isabelle, her tears, her stubborn determination to stay by my side as my world drifted away from hers. I thought of Clara, of Zaccaria. Of the signs. Of the flames. Of the water. Of time standing still. Of that thing in the well.
And I understood something.
I couldn't go back.
Whether I wanted to or not, something was calling me.
And every day, every step, brought me closer to what I had always been destined to become.