Chapter 5 5. The Shadow!

Saintilia POV

When I turned thirteen, that day should have been a celebration, a sweet moment for me, but it was steeped in a familiar, bitter tea of memory. My thoughts, as they so often did, drifted to my father, Jonas. It was around this time two years ago that the earth fell out from under me. He was gone, and the void he left felt like a physical hollow in my chest, one I was certain could never be filled. Celebrating my birthday now felt like a delicate, impossible dance. A forced step of joy followed by a crushing stumble back into sorrow.

In this journey of grief, the only comfort I found was in clinging to the man he was. I tried to hold tight to the values he'd taught me: to be strong, to be proud of who I was. They became a faint, flickering light in the overwhelming darkness, a ghost of his presence when his real one was forever out of reach.

At eleven, I was forced to understand a reality I never asked for. Jonas, my rock, the man I believed was unshakable, was suddenly... gone. His absence wasn't just a sadness; it was a fracture line that split my life into a before and an after. A hot, silent anger at him for leaving me burned in my gut for a long, long time.

As the years passed, I learned how to move through a world without him. I learned to function. But I could never erase the sound of his voice, the memory of his rough hands cupping my face as he told me I was his whole world. Those words, and his stories about the joy I brought to him and my mother, Paulette, were etched permanently inside me. They were a bittersweet reminder of a love that felt like a dream, too perfect to have been real.

I was barely a year old when my mother passed. I have no memory of her. The only proof she ever existed was an old, faded photograph in Jonas's wallet, so worn and blurry it could have been a picture of anyone. How could I believe it was her? How could I miss a ghost? Jonas and I never spoke of Paulette. Not about how she lived, and certainly not about how she died. His silence built a wall around her memory. And that silence got me thinking, a terrible, corrosive thought that gnawed at me in the dark: If I brought them so much joy, why did they both leave me here to fend for myself?

The chorus of crickets and the evening birds was a gentle but persistent alarm clock, telling me I had stayed at the river for far too long. Lost in the labyrinth of my thoughts, I had let the sun begin its descent. Navigating the woods in the late afternoon was one thing, but the dense canopy, with its leaves knitted tightly together, stole the light long before sunset, plunging the path into a deep, deceptive twilight.

A lifetime in this village, founded by my own father, had made its secrets my own. These hidden pathways and shortcuts were a map etched behind my eyes. I had always felt a defiant confidence that I could find my way home blindfolded.

Then I heard it; the crunch of a footstep that wasn't my own.

My first, foolish thought was of Tina. She would be furious, her anger always sharpened by a hungry stomach. I picked up my pace, the gourds of water swinging heavily at my sides. But then another sound came, and another. Not from the path ahead, but from the trees to my right. I stopped, my breath catching in my throat. I scanned the dense thicket, my eyes straining against the shadows. For a moment, nothing. Then, a flicker of movement; a dark, human-shaped form darting from one tree trunk to another, melting into the gloom.

My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic drumbeat of fear. It's just another villager; I tried to tell myself. This is the main road to the river. But the logic felt thin, a flimsy shield against the sheer terror rising in my throat.

I pressed forward, my grip on the gourds so tight a sharp pain shot through my knuckles. I couldn't tell where the steps were coming from anymore, only that they were getting closer, matching my pace, then quickening. My long legs were an advantage. I lengthened my stride, my sandals scraping against the dirt, no longer caring about the water sloshing over the rims. I just had to get home.

A twig snapped directly behind me.

I spun around, my voice a shaky weapon in the overwhelming silence.

"Who's there?"

My curiosity fought a desperate battle with my fear, urging me to call out again, to determine if the footsteps belonged to a familiar villager or a phantom of the encroaching dark. An unnatural stillness had fallen, so profound it felt as if the very forest was holding its breath. The birds had gone silent, or perhaps my own terror had deafened me to everything but the drumming of my own heart.

I tried to dismiss it as a trick of the mind. You're imagining things, I told myself, forcing one foot in front of the other. Who would be following you?

Then a voice cut through the silence, a low command that was almost muffled by the trees.

"Stop."

It was a man's voice, and I did not know it. In that instant, fear wasn't just an emotion; it was a physical poison surging through my veins, locking my joints. The reality of my defenselessness crashed down upon me. I was alone in the dark with a stranger.

"Who are you?" I demanded, my voice trembling. "Why are you following me?"

His silence was more terrifying than any answer. It was deliberate, and a chilling thought seized me: He doesn't want you to recognize him. I scrambled through my memory, trying to match a face to the muffled voice, but found nothing.

Panic, pure and instinctual, finally overrode the paralysis. Run. But as I tried to bolt, my legs betrayed by terror, buckled beneath me. I fell hard, the gourds slamming into the earth beside me, their crack a sickening sound in the quiet. My heart drummed like a trapped bird, a frantic, painful rhythm. The fear was so terrifying, so overwhelming, it felt like drowning on dry land.

As I scrambled backward, I desperately wished for the fireflies to swarm, to cast their tiny lights on the face of my nightmare. But they were scarce. A memory, sharp and sudden, pierced the haze: had this same man been watching me from the tree line while I was at the river? The thought rooted me for a fatal second, a fleeting hesitation born of a desperate need to know.