In the quiet town of Eldergrove, nestled between misty hills and ancient forests, there are whispers of creatures that do not belong to this world. Most dismiss them as local folklore, but those who have seen the signs know better. The woods are alive with secrets, and the people who live near them speak in hushed tones of the things that move just beyond the edge of sight. It began with a child. A boy named Eli, no older than ten, who wandered into the forest one autumn evening while chasing a flicker of light through the trees. His mother found him later, wide-eyed and trembling, clutching a small, smooth stone that he claimed had been "talking" to him. She tried to soothe him, but the stone never left his hand, and soon it was clear something had changed in the boy. The first strange thing happened when the wind stopped. Not entirely, but for a few seconds, as if the world had paused. The leaves on the trees hung motionless, and the air grew still. Then came the sound—low, resonant, like the groan of an old bridge or the creak of a forgotten door. Eli said he heard it again, not from the trees, but from beneath the ground. He wouldn’t say what it was, only that it had eyes. The townspeople started noticing other things. A shadow that moved without a body. A set of footprints that led nowhere, ending abruptly at the base of an old oak tree. A bird that flew in circles above the same spot for hours before vanishing. Some claimed they saw a creature, tall and thin, with elongated limbs and glowing eyes, standing at the edge of the forest. Others swore they felt a presence watching them, even when alone. Eli’s parents tried to send him away, to a city where such things didn’t exist. But the boy refused, saying he had to stay. “It needs me,” he told them. They didn’t understand, but they feared what they couldn’t explain. One night, the town was woken by a low, mournful cry that echoed through the valley. It wasn’t human, nor was it animal. It was something in between, a sound that made the hair on the back of your neck stand up. People gathered in the square, some with flashlights, others with nothing but fear. No one could tell where the sound came from, only that it seemed to be coming from all directions at once. The next morning, the forest was different. The trees were taller, their branches twisted into unnatural shapes. The air smelled of damp earth and something metallic, like blood. And in the center of the clearing where Eli had last been seen, there was a circle of stones, arranged in a perfect pattern. Each stone had a symbol carved into it, symbols that no one recognized. A group of townspeople ventured into the forest, led by a man named Mr. Halvorson, a retired teacher with a fascination for ancient myths. As they walked, the trees seemed to lean inward, as if listening. The deeper they went, the more the silence thickened. At one point, Halvorson stopped and pointed to a patch of moss that glowed faintly in the dim light. “It’s not natural,” he said, kneeling to touch it. The moment his fingers brushed the surface, the moss pulsed, and the ground beneath them trembled. They turned back, but the path had changed. The trees were no longer the same, and the sky above them had shifted to a strange, violet hue. When they finally reached the edge of the forest, they found Eli sitting on a rock, his eyes closed, his hands resting on the smooth stone he had carried for so long. He opened them slowly, as if waking from a dream, and looked at them with a knowing smile. “Did you see it?” he asked. They didn’t know what he meant, but they knew they had seen something. Something that should not be. No one spoke of it after that. The forest remained, as it always had, but the people of Eldergrove now avoided its edges, whispering prayers under their breath when they passed by. Eli disappeared shortly after, leaving behind only the stone, which was later found buried deep in the roots of the old oak tree. And sometimes, when the wind is just right, and the moon is high, the townspeople swear they hear a voice, soft and distant, calling out from the trees. A voice that sounds like a child, but with something else beneath it—something ancient, something waiting.