Some curses are passed down in blood. Others are carved into the very soul of a place. The village of Durnholde was once a peaceful settlement, thriving on the banks of the Greywater River. Then, one night, a black mark appeared—a sigil burned into the land itself, its meaning unknown. The crops withered. The river turned foul. And one by one, the people of Durnholde began to vanish.

No one knows who—or what—left the mark. No one speaks of those who disappeared. The only certainty is that once the mark chooses you, there is no escape.

I, Merlin, have walked through ages, seen kings fall and empires rise. But tonight, as I step into the abandoned streets of Durnholde, I feel something watching me.

Something waiting.

The Black Mark of Durnholde

The village was silent.

Not the silence of the sleeping, nor the hush of an early morning mist. This was a different kind of silence—one that listens.

I walked cautiously along the broken cobblestone path, my staff tapping against the stones with each step. Durnholde had been abandoned for over a century, yet the air still held the weight of its final moments.

The villagers had disappeared.

Not fled. Not killed.

Just gone.

And at the center of it all—the mark.

It was exactly as I had heard it described: a black sigil, burned into the earth, its tendrils reaching out like an infection. The shape was unnatural, neither runic nor arcane, as if it had been written in a language that did not belong to this world.

I crouched beside it, running my fingers just above the surface.

The air shivered.

The mark was still alive.

I exhaled, steadying my mind. I had encountered many curses, but this… this was something else.

Then, behind me—a footstep.

I turned sharply.

But there was no one there.

Only the fog curling through the empty streets.

I straightened slowly. “I know you’re watching,” I said aloud.

For a long moment, nothing.

Then—a whisper.

“You should not have come.”

The whisper lingered in the fog, curling around me like unseen fingers. It had no clear source, no breath or weight—just a voice pressed into the air, like something speaking from behind reality itself.

I did not flinch. I had heard voices like this before.

I tightened my grip on my staff. “You should not have marked this place.”

A long silence followed. Then, the fog shifted.

At first, it was subtle—the way mist drifts on an evening tide. But then, I noticed a pattern. The fog wasn’t moving with the wind.

It was circling me.

Something was here.

Something that had never left.

The Forgotten Names of Durnholde

I took a step back, my boots pressing into the damp earth just beside the black mark. The symbol pulsed, as if it had felt my presence, as if it knew I was here.

And then, for the first time since I arrived, I saw the truth.

The village was not empty.

Not completely.

The houses stood in decay, their wooden frames warped with time. Windows gaped like open mouths, their glass long shattered. But through the mist—I saw shapes inside.

They were not living.

And they were not dead.

They were trapped.

Figures stood in the doorways, in the shadows of their homes. Their eyes were dark hollows, their skin thin as paper. Their mouths moved silently, as if whispering words they had long forgotten.

The villagers.

They had never vanished.

They had been bound to this place.

And the mark at my feet was their prison.

The Watchers in the Fog

I straightened, my heart steady. “You are not gone,” I murmured. “You are still here.”

The whispering figures did not move.

But then—one did.

A woman.

Her face shifted in and out of focus, as if she existed between two moments in time. Her dress was torn, her hands blackened as though burned. Yet I could see her lips moving.

I took a step toward her. “Speak.”

Her mouth opened wider, her head tilting at an unnatural angle. And then, a voice erupted from everywhere at once.

“The mark must be fed.”

I felt the ground beneath me tremble.

The black sigil pulsed again, stronger this time.

The village was waking up.

And it was hungry.

The Mark’s Purpose

I focused, forcing my mind to trace the flow of energy around me. The mark wasn’t just holding them here—it was feeding off them.

But why?

Curses have purpose. They do not exist without intent.

I knelt beside the mark, my fingers hovering over its unnatural lines. This was not Egyptian magic. Nor Norse. Nor any form of binding spell I had ever encountered.

It was older than that.

A name surfaced in my mind. A name I had not spoken in centuries.

“Anatheos.”

The air cracked like splitting ice.

And then—the whispering stopped.

The figures in the mist froze, their heads all turning toward me at once.

I had spoken the wrong name.

Or perhaps, the right one.

Because now… something was coming.

The Presence Beyond the Veil

The fog darkened. The sky dimmed, though the sun had not yet set. The mist curled inward, pulling at the world itself, and I felt something pressing against reality—something massive, something that had been watching for a long, long time.

And then, for the first time, the mark moved.

A shadow rose from its center, a figure tall and gaunt, wrapped in folds of darkness. It had no face. No true shape. But its presence burned against my mind like a memory I had tried to forget.

“You speak my name,” it whispered.

I did not answer.

“You should not have come.”

The air trembled, the buildings around me creaking under an unseen weight.

The mark had not been a curse upon the villagers.

It had been a doorway.

A summoning circle.

And now—it was open.

The Choice That Cannot Be Undone

The presence loomed closer. I felt its hunger. It had waited here, trapped between worlds, bound by the mark, growing stronger with each lost soul.

And now, it had noticed me.

“Another offering.”

It wanted me.

Or rather—it wanted the magic I carried.

My staff burned in my grip, the runes along its surface glowing brighter than they had in centuries.

This was not a spirit.

This was not a curse.

This was something far worse.

An Anatheon.

A thing born before time, existing beyond the veil of what should be known.

And I had woken it.

I had two choices.

I could fight.

Or…

I could bargain.

The presence loomed closer. The villagers in the mist watched—silent, waiting, as if their fates were tied to my choice.

The mark beneath me pulsed again.

Time was running out.

I had to decide.

Now.

The thing inside the mark moved closer.

It had no legs. No face. No voice beyond the whispering hunger that pressed against my mind. It was a presence, a thing that should not exist, a memory of something older than gods.

And I had woken it.

The villagers watched from the mist, their hollow eyes locked onto me, their souls bound to this entity. They were not the victims of the mark—they were the fuel.

If I did nothing, this thing would consume me as it had them.

If I fought it, I had no guarantee I could win.

I had faced demons, sorcerers, and curses, but this…

This was not a thing of magic.

This was a thing of void.

And it was growing stronger.

The Rules of the Forgotten Ones

I did not act immediately.

Instead, I listened.

Magic had rules. So did gods, spirits, and curses. Even the worst horrors in the void had rules.

This thing had been bound to the mark.

It could not roam freely—not yet.

It needed something.

It wanted me.

But why?

“You see me,” it whispered, its voice threading through the air like a blade against silk.

The mist curled around it, bending the light, darkening the village as if the sky itself was retreating.

“You speak my name.”

The black mark beneath me burned, as if responding to the entity’s hunger.

“You can release me.”

There it was.

The thing could not leave on its own.

It needed a key.

It needed a mind that understood it.

And I had spoken its name.

I had become the key.

I exhaled. “You cannot leave unless I open the door for you.”

A pause. The entity twisted, its form rippling like liquid shadow.

“You are wise, Merlin.”

It circled me, its body shifting in and out of something I could not comprehend.

“But wisdom will not save you.”

The villagers took a step forward.

The Hunger of the Mark

The moment their feet touched the ground, the mark pulsed.

A tremor rolled through the earth.

The villagers’ bodies shuddered—and then they collapsed inward, their shapes unraveling into black smoke, sucked into the sigil like water down a drain.

The entity grew.

The fog thickened.

It had fed on them, just as it had for centuries.

The longer I stood here, the stronger it would become.

I had to act now.

Breaking the Mark’s Hold

I drove my staff into the ground, feeling the energy coil beneath the surface.

The mark was not just a door—it was a binding.

Someone had trapped this thing long ago.

But who?

And why?

I reached into the sigil with my mind, threading my magic through its layers of reality. The symbols twisted, warping into patterns I had never seen before—as if they had been designed not by human hands, but by something else entirely.

“You cannot break what you do not understand,” the entity murmured.

But I was not trying to break it.

I was trying to understand it.

I traced the origin of the sigil, peeling back the layers of its magic like unraveling a thread.

And then—I found it.

The true purpose of the mark.

It was not a prison.

It was a bargain.

This thing had not been trapped.

It had been summoned.

The One Who Called the Void

I saw it.

A vision burned through my mind, flashing images of the one who had first placed the mark.

A man in robes, his face obscured, standing before the sigil as it was first carved into the land. His hands dripped with blood, his voice trembling as he spoke the name of the entity.

“You will give me power.”

“And in return, I will give you them.”

The villagers had not been cursed by accident.

They had been sacrifices.

Given to the thing in the void by someone who had wanted something in return.

But the deal had been twisted.

The summoner had failed to control what he called forth. And in his failure, the entity had been bound in place—left only to consume the souls nearest to it.

Durnholde had not been a cursed village.

It had been a feeding ground.

And now—I was next.

The Counter-Binding

I pulled back from the sigil, my pulse steady. I had what I needed.

I was not strong enough to destroy this thing completely—it was not meant to exist in a world of rules and gods.

But I could re-bind it.

The entity watched me, its form coiling as if sensing my realization.

“You know now,” it whispered.

I did.

I turned my staff, tracing a new shape in the dirt beside the sigil.

I was not here to release this thing.

I was here to lock it away forever.

“You cannot—”

I slammed my palm against the ground, sealing the first sigil of containment.

The entity shuddered, recoiling.

I drew another.

The mist howled, twisting into shapes that screamed in protest.

“MERLIN—”

A third sigil.

The entity convulsed, its form collapsing inward as the mark itself began to warp. The sigil was no longer a feeding pool—it was becoming a prison.

The fog was ripped away, spiraling into the mark like a storm collapsing into itself.

The world shook, the very air vibrating with the thing’s rage.

“YOU CANNOT ERASE ME—”

But I was not erasing it.

I was banishing it.

One final movement.

One final word.

And the mark sealed shut.

The Silence After the Storm

I exhaled, stepping back.

The fog was gone.

The whispers had ceased.

The village stood in absolute silence, as if time had frozen.

And then—slowly—the presence faded.

The mark remained.

But now, it was nothing but a shadow.

A scar of what had once been.

I gripped my staff, my breath slow. The entity was locked away once more.

For how long?

That… I did not know.

But tonight, Durnholde was free.

The silence after the binding was unnatural, thick with the weight of something that had just been forced back into the abyss.

I stood there, my hand still pressed to the earth, feeling the last remnants of the entity’s presence slowly unravel from this world. The black mark remained, but now it was just a scar—a place where something once was, no longer a thing that hungered for souls.

The mist had lifted.

The village of Durnholde stood empty once more.

And I was alone.

The Last Echo

As I rose to my feet, my staff still glowing faintly, I heard it.

A voice—distant, fragmented, no longer a whisper of hunger, but something else.

“It is never truly over, Merlin.”

It was not a threat.

Not a warning.

It was a promise.

Something like laughter—soft, distorted—drifted through the empty streets.

And then… nothing.

The entity had been banished, sealed away. But I had not destroyed it.

It still existed.

Waiting.

I turned away from the sigil, the ruined village stretching before me like a graveyard without bodies.

Durnholde would never be rebuilt.

No one would return.

No one would ever know what had happened here.

But that was for the best.

Some places are not meant to be remembered.

Some curses are not meant to be understood.

And some doors…

Should never be opened again.

With that final thought, I stepped away from Durnholde, leaving its forgotten shadows behind.

For now.