The town listened.
Mira's pencil moved fast, her strokes deliberate, each line pulling fragments of memory into form. Around her, the echoes stood still—watching, waiting, as if their very existence depended on what she drew next.
Luka knelt beside her, eyes scanning the growing image with quiet intensity.
At first, it was just a shape—a doorway within a doorway, smaller than the one beneath the birch tree but pulsing with the same strange energy. Then came the details: a child standing at its threshold, hand outstretched; a man watching from behind a window that didn't exist in the real world; a woman whispering something only the wind could hear.
Each figure carried an unfinished moment.
A story left unheard.
Luka swallowed hard. "They want to be remembered."
Mira nodded and added one final touch—a spiral carved into the ground beneath them all.
Then she tapped the edge of the page twice.
Confirmation.
He exhaled slowly. "So how do we do it? How do we give them voice ?"
She hesitated—then reached for his hand.
Placed it over her chest.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then—
A sound.
Not loud.
Not musical.
But felt .
It pulsed beneath his fingers like a heartbeat made of memory.
And then he heard it.
Not words.
Not exactly.
Just... impressions.
Grief. Love. Fear. Longing.
Fragments of lives caught between silence and remembrance.
Luka gasped and pulled his hand away, breath unsteady.
"You hear them too," Mira signed softly.
He nodded. "Yeah. I think I always have."
Back in the real world, the town of Hollowbrook was unraveling.
Another disappearance.
This time, a teenager—barely sixteen—found missing from his home, door locked from the inside, no signs of struggle. His mother had heard him talking to someone late at night. A voice she didn't recognize.
When Eli read the news online, he clenched his fists so tightly his nails bit into his palms.
He wanted to blame Mira.
Blame Luka.
Blame the forest.
But deep down, he knew this wasn't about them anymore.
Something had woken up .
And it was spreading.
That night, Eli found Mira sitting by the window again, sketchpad open in her lap.
She hadn't drawn anything yet.
Just stared at the blank page like it held something she wasn't ready to face.
He sat beside her without a word.
After a long silence, she finally looked at him.
Then she signed:
You're afraid.
He didn't deny it. "I don't know what you two are doing anymore. It's not just drawing. It's not just listening. It's… more."
She tilted her head.
Then she drew.
A boy standing alone in a field of ash.
Watching something vanish.
Eli recognized himself instantly.
His throat tightened.
She touched his arm gently.
Then signed:
You were never meant to stay outside this.
He blinked.
"What does that mean?" he whispered.
She hesitated—then pointed to his chest.
And signed:
You remember things too. Even if you don't realize it.
He shook his head. "No. I don't—"
But even as he said it, a memory surfaced.
Unbidden.
Unwelcome.
His mother's voice, soft and urgent, warning him to keep Mira safe.
His father's hands, shaking as he tried to pull them both from the fire.
And then—
A name.
Not his.
Not hers.
Someone else's.
Someone who had been there.
And vanished.
Eli's breath hitched.
"I don't…" He trailed off, staring at Mira. "I don't remember everything."
She smiled faintly.
Then she signed:
That's why you need to come with us.
The next morning, they returned to the birch tree.
This time, Eli followed without protest.
The door was open.
Waiting.
As if it had known all along that he would come back.
Mira reached for Luka's hand.
Then turned to Eli.
And signed:
Let's go inside.
Together, they stepped through.
And the silence welcomed them home.