The Whispering Mark

  Elias pressed a hand to his throbbing neck, wincing as his fingers brushed against warm blood. His breathing was ragged, shallow, his chest tightening with every passing second. He wasn’t crazy. The oily residue on the floor, the lingering reek of sulfur, the faint, metallic taste on his tongue—they were real.

  It happened. But then... where was it?

  His hands trembled as he tried to sit up, his pulse hammering in his ears. The garage, once familiar, now felt... alien. The shelves loomed taller, the walls seemed closer, the dim light humming with an unnatural tension.

  And then he saw it.

  The symbol.

  Etched into the wooden surface of the workbench, almost glowing beneath the flickering light.

  Elias had spent months in this garage—fixing things, stacking tools, sorting through old boxes. He had never seen this before.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  The design was intricate. A jagged spiral, lines crossing over one another like fractured veins, an ancient thing carved deep into the wood, as if someone—or something—had burned it there with deliberate intent.

  As he stared at it, an invisible force seemed to coil around his skull, pressing against his thoughts, tugging him forward. His breath hitched.

  His fingers twitched.

  He reached out—

  CRACK.

  The light overhead burst, plunging the garage into darkness.

  A whisper.

  Faint. Like wind slithering through dry leaves.

  A voice, distant yet unmistakable, hissed through the silence.

  “It sees you.”

  Elias jerked back, his pulse slamming into his ribs. The cold around him thickened, heavy, like a presence pressing against his skin. The whisper slithered through the room again, curling against the walls, slipping between the cracks of reality.

  “It sees you, Elias.”

  His name.

  It knew his name.

  The whisper was behind him.

  Elias spun around.

  Nothing.

  The garage door was still shut. The shadows were still. But the air wasn’t empty.

  Something was watching.

  His chest rose and fell in sharp, panicked bursts. He had to get out. Now.

  But as he turned to grab the handle of the door leading back into the house, something caught his eye.

  Something written beneath the symbol.

  Not carved. Not burned. Scrawled.

  In fresh, black ink.

  Two words.

  Words that sent a dagger of pure dread slicing through his chest.

  “Not alone.”