Chương 219: Chapter 219
The air was still that evening, a heat so heavy it pressed against your skin like a hundred invisible hands. The town, nestled between thick woods and dry fields, had a way of feeling like it was forgotten by time. Buildings cracked in places where no one looked. The town didn't matter to anyone outside its borders anymore. That's how it had always been.
But tonight was different.
When Mia stepped outside her small cottage on the edge of town, she could feel it immediately. The wind—so light, so quiet—brushed against her skin like it was barely there at all. Yet it wasn't right. It carried something strange in its pull, a tug like it was calling her.
Mia shook her head. She had no reason to fear a breeze. But the moment she glanced back at the doorway, her younger brother, Ben, stood there. His eyes were wide, too wide, and the air seemed to shift around him. His hand reached out, fingers twitching in the softening light of dusk, as if the wind itself had drawn him.
"Ben," Mia snapped, stepping forward. "Get inside. Now."
But he didn't move. Instead, he looked up at her with those eyes—something in them had changed. Like he wasn't there, not really. His lips parted, but no words came out. A chill ran up Mia's spine, a sudden awareness sinking into her gut. Something wasn't right with him.
And then, the wind came again.
It wasn't like a gust, like the kind that would blow your hair back or make the leaves rustle. It was a pull, gentle but undeniable, tugging at Ben's body like it wanted him. His feet shuffled toward the doorframe, and Mia's heart hammered. She ran to him, but her feet felt as though they were sinking into the earth, dragging her with every step.
"Ben!" she cried out, but he didn't answer. His stare was distant, as if he couldn't hear her at all. The pull of the breeze, though light, was unyielding.
Mia reached out for him. She grabbed his shoulder, tried to pull him back, but it was like holding onto smoke. The wind picked up, and a sound—something like a low, distant groan—began to rise around them. The air grew thick, and Ben's body jerked against her grip, his feet leaving the ground just enough for her to feel the weightlessness.
"Please," Mia begged. Her hands shook, gripping his clothes, but it was no use. The breeze swept through the door and into the house with a force that made the walls creak.
Mia fell to her knees, screaming Ben's name, but it was already too late. Her brother, her baby brother, was gone.
The breeze carried him away, like it had taken so many others before.
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The following day was no better. Mia searched the woods, ran to the fields, called out for Ben until her voice cracked and her throat bled. But nothing came back. No sign. No answer. Not even the birds dared to cry out.
No one believed her. They never did. Not when it came to the strange wind that would take children. No one remembered the old stories. The ones the elders whispered of, when the town was younger and the land was still full of life.
But Mia remembered.
A long time ago, before the children started disappearing, there was a legend. It said the wind, soft as a sigh, could take away the innocent. That the land it took them to was nothing like here. That there, the children were no longer children. They became something else—lost in a place of endless torment, tortured by forces beyond human comprehension. No one knew where this place was, or why it wanted children, but it was said to happen only when the air grew heavy with that strange, almost invisible breeze.
The breeze had taken Ben.
And it would take others, too. The others who still had innocence.
Mia sat in the empty house, the door swinging lightly on its hinges. It creaked with each push of the wind, like it was calling her, too. The town outside was silent. No one dared speak of it. No one dared speak of the disappearances.
Mia had to find him.
She had to find Ben.
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It took Mia two days to gather the courage to venture back into the woods. She couldn't go back to the fields; they were too wide, too open, and the breeze would surely catch her there. The woods, however, they were narrow, they were dense, and maybe there, in the shadows, she could find a way to track the wind, to track where it had taken her brother.
She grabbed a small bundle, something to keep her fed, though she barely touched it. Her heart wasn't in food or water; it was in finding Ben.
The trees stood like sentinels, their gnarled branches stretching high, as if to grasp at the very sky itself. The wind, soft as it was, whispered through them, but Mia could hear the sound—low, guttural, like a creature moving just beneath the earth, always just out of reach. The same feeling she had when she first saw Ben reach out toward it.
With each step deeper into the woods, Mia felt herself being drawn further away from what was safe. The air grew colder, though the heat of the sun still hung heavy in the sky. The woods felt alive, as though the earth itself had become aware of her presence. Her every footstep echoed in the silence, and she was certain she could hear something—no, someone—moving in the shadows.
There was something else. A voice, soft but insistent, called to her from within the depths of the trees. It was nothing like Ben's voice—Ben had always been a quiet boy—but it had a kind of pull to it. She stopped and listened, her breath catching in her throat.
"Mia…"
She froze, her heart slamming into her ribs. It was her brother's voice, faint, impossibly faint, but unmistakably his.
Her legs moved before she could stop them. She ran, through the thick trees, following the sound, though it wasn't growing any closer. Her body screamed for her to stop, to turn back, to leave the woods and never return. But she couldn't. Not without him.
The voice called again, but this time it wasn't Ben.
"Mia…"
It was someone else. Someone she didn't recognize. The voice was strained, desperate, but twisted—like it was broken. Mia didn't stop. She couldn't stop. She kept running, the wind picking up again, pulling at her hair, her clothes, pushing her forward.
And then she found it.
A clearing. A vast, empty stretch where the earth had been torn apart.
At the center of it stood a single figure, hunched over. It didn't look human, but it was hard to tell. Its limbs were wrong—too long, too twisted—and its face was hidden by shadows. But from beneath it, she could see the bodies of children. Children who had been taken. Children who had disappeared, their eyes wide open, staring at nothing.
And there, on the far side of the clearing, was Ben.
He didn't see her. His body was stiff, unmoving. He stood, his face pale, his mouth stretched in a grimace. His hands were curled into fists at his sides, as if he was trying to hold on to something.
"Mia…" The voice came again, but it wasn't from Ben.
It was from the thing in the clearing.
It stepped forward, a long, cruel smile stretching across its face. The eyes behind it were hollow, black pits that swallowed everything around them.
Mia didn't wait. She ran, her legs burning, her breath ragged, but the wind was there again, too strong, too much. It picked her up, slammed her into the earth, and she could hear the thing's laughter in her head, twisting, grinding like it was made of bone.
She looked up.
Ben was gone.
There was nothing left but the wind and the sound of her own heartbeat as she was dragged away.
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