III. At the Threshold

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He woke before the sun. 

 

The house was still dark, still silent. His father’s door was closed, the hallway thick with the breath of sleeping things. 

 

Nico dressed without thinking—shirt, jeans, shoes with dust in the soles—and stepped outside.

 

The air held a bite. The stars were fading into pale gray. 

 

Far off, a rooster called, and somewhere beyond that, a single shot cracked through the morning. 

 

He didn’t flinch. Just walked.

 

He passed the old church. The candles inside flickered faintly through the glass, though no one seemed to light them anymore. The doors were chained now, except on Sundays.

 

Someone had painted over the mural of Saint Michael again. Just a black square now, slick with dew. 

 

The skull graffiti was gone—but the silence it left behind seemed louder.

 

An old man sweeping the front steps across the road paused when he saw Nico. His broom stopped mid-motion.

 

“You heading out that way?” the man asked.

 

Nico didn’t answer. 

 

The old man nodded like he already knew. He tapped two fingers to his chest, then his forehead—a half-blessing, or a ward against bad luck. Then he went back to sweeping.

 

At the edge of town, the pavement ended. 

 

Nico sat on a crumbling wall where the road gave way to gravel and wind. From here, you could see the rise of the hills, the faint trail that led into the canyon.

 

He’d never been that far. No one he knew had.

 

The compound was somewhere out there—his compound. They called it the Mouth, though no one said why. 

 

Maybe because people went in and were never heard from again. 

Maybe because it spoke only once, and then swallowed you whole.

 

Yama wants to see you.

 

The words from the day before returned, uninvited.

 

He picked up a stone and turned it in his palm. It was dense, like it had a will of its own.

 

He didn’t believe in monsters. Not really. 

 

But there was something in that name—Yama—that made the air thinner, the birds quieter, the morning longer.

 

He looked toward the trail. The dirt path bent into the hills like a scar. 

 

At the far end, something shimmered—not light, not shadow, but suggestion. 

 

The kind of shimmer that comes before heat. 

Or revelation.

 

He stood. 

Then sat again. 

 

There was no decision yet. No plan. Just a silence that kept growing.

 

By the time the sun crested the ridge, Nico was already walking back. 

 

He passed the bakery just as the first tray of bread hit the counter. The woman behind the glass looked up, then looked away. 

 

A boy sweeping the sidewalk paused as Nico passed. He muttered something to himself—maybe a name, maybe a prayer. 

 

Nico didn’t stop. 

 

Someone waved from across the road. He didn’t wave back.

 

The closer he got to home, the more everything felt blurred—not like a dream, but like something had slipped just slightly out of alignment. 

 

The town was still there. The buildings still stood. But something had pulled back from it all. 

 

Like the world had exhaled and was waiting to see what he would do next.

 

Back at the house, the windows were still dark. 

 

He didn’t go inside right away. 

 

He sat on the front step, turned the stone again in his pocket. 

 

The weight felt right. 

Not heavy. 

Not light. 

Just true.

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Continue to Part IV: The Compound

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