Jonas Hale

Jonas Hale adjusted his collar as he stepped into the lantern-lit square, drawn by music he didn’t remember hearing and joy he didn’t remember feeling. The Harvest Banquet shimmered before him—tables piled high with food, citizens laughing, lights glowing like captured fireflies. The warmth of it all wrapped around him like a familiar blanket. He couldn’t remember when he’d arrived in Briar’s Rest. Days? Weeks? Why did it feel like the town had been waiting for him? A woman he thought he recognized—had he met her?—pressed a cup into his hand. “You’re special tonight,” she said. Her smile didn’t quite touch her eyes, but Jonas didn’t question it. The music, that soft humming drifting from everywhere and nowhere, made questions unnecessary. He drank. The sweetness slid down his throat, thick like honey, heavy like sleep. The crowd swayed, clapped, whispered encouragement he could no longer understand. The ground beneath the square seemed to pulse faintly, like a heartbeat buried deep. “Time for the offering,” someone announced cheerfully. Offering? Of what? Jonas blinked, trying to focus, but the humming grew louder—no, closer. Like someone singing directly into his mind. Hands guided him forward. Friendly hands. Familiar hands. Hands he didn’t know at all. He laughed, unsure why. Everything was soft around the edges. The lanterns blurred. The world narrowed to a warm corridor of smiles and expectant eyes. And then—darkness beneath the floorboards. A breath. A hunger. A greeting. Jonas’s thoughts slowed, stretched thin. Something touched him—inside his mind, gently unraveling the thread of who he was. Memories dissolved like ink in water: his mother’s face, the smell of rain, the shape of his own hands. Each piece lifted away, absorbed by something vast and waiting. He didn’t scream. He didn’t think to.