Days passed slowly in the village.
Emma, Jessica, and Nóra tried to return to ordinary life—
Morning walks to the market, afternoons spent flipping through books on the inn's terrace.
But peace existed only on the surface.
Emma often felt eyes on them.
A shadow in the corner of her vision.
A presence just beyond the window.
Whenever she turned, no one was there.
But the chill lingered.
One evening, just after the sun dipped behind the hills, Emma walked alone to the village cemetery.
A gentle breeze swept between the stones.
She reached into her pocket, fingers brushing the spiral pendant.
It was cold.
Like ice.
She stopped in front of an unfamiliar grave.
The stone was plain, with only one word carved into it:
"Return."
Emma shivered.
Among the gravel, something caught the light.
She bent down.
A thin metal ring lay there—
Delicately etched with a spiral motif.
Her heart pounded.
Someone—or something—was sending a message.
And it wasn't finished.
Emma stood slowly.
In the air, she heard the whisper again—one she knew too well:
"The new circle has begun…"
—
Back at the inn, Jessica and Nóra waited.
On the table lay an old, yellowed letter—someone had slipped it under the door while they weren't looking.
Jessica opened it with trembling hands.
The page contained only one line, handwritten:
"Not everyone came back."
Emma stepped through the door just as Jessica and Nóra stared at the letter in shock.
Jessica looked up, her face pale.
Emma frowned.
"What happened?"
Nóra spoke in a shaky voice.
"Someone… someone's watching us."
Emma's hand closed tightly around the spiral pendant in her pocket.
And she knew:
Their story wasn't over.
It had only just begun.
She took the letter from Jessica.
The paper was cold in her hands—
As if it held not just words, but a deeper, darker truth.
"Not everyone came back."
The sentence echoed in her mind.
Nóra whispered:
"But… all three of us got out. Didn't we?"
Emma slowly sat on the edge of the bed.
She placed the ring she found at the cemetery on the table.
The spiral motif pulsed faintly in the dim light.
Jessica and Nóra stared at it in silence.
Then Emma felt it.
A terrifying thought rising in her.
"Maybe…" she said quietly, "maybe someone… didn't really come out with us."
Jessica's eyes widened.
"What do you mean?"
Emma took a deep breath.
"What if someone—or something—came back… but isn't who they seem to be?"
Nóra turned pale.
"Who…?"
The silence in the room grew unbearable.
Jessica bit her lip, eyes darting.
Emma looked at them both.
"The spiral didn't just feed on our fear. It copied it. Reflected what it saw in us.
Our pain.
Our desires."
Jessica stepped back.
"You're saying… one of us isn't real?"
Emma didn't answer immediately.
The room felt colder.
The air heavier.
Then, suddenly—Nóra screamed.
A shadow at the window moved.
Emma lunged forward, yanked open the door, and rushed into the hallway.
But there was no one there.
Only darkness.
And carved into the wall of the inn—
Another spiral.
Small. Subtle. Deliberate.
Someone—or something—had left its mark.
Emma turned back to Jessica and Nóra's terrified faces.
And in her heart, she already knew:
The spiral had written a new circle.
And they were still at its center.