Ivy had always been suspicious of the black cat that lurked near her home. It wasn't just the way it watched her eyes gleaming like twin embers in the dark.
It was the way it always seemed to be waiting.
She would catch glimpses of it on rooftops, slinking through alleys, or perched on her fence as if it had been expecting her.
She had even tested it once, tossing a rock to startle it, only to watch it vanish—not scamper away, not bolt like a normal cat, but disappear like smoke curling in the wind. Tonight, however, she finally had her chance to prove her suspicions right.
The events of the previous day still clung to her thoughts like cobwebs. The door of briars. The eerie whisper. The way her ring had glowed. It all made her restless, unable to shake the feeling that something unseen was unraveling before her very eyes. And then there was the cat.
Ivy spotted it just as dusk settled over Ravenshade. It stood at the edge of the woods, tail flicking as if beckoning her.
The moment their eyes met, it turned and disappeared into the trees.
Not this time.
Determined, she grabbed her jacket and followed.
The forest swallowed her whole, the path ahead dim under the fading light.
The air was thick, heavy, just as it had been when she had found the door. She moved quickly, trying not to lose sight of the shadowy feline weaving through the underbrush."Hey—-wait!" she called, her voice swallowed by the dense woods.
The cat never slowed. It darted deeper, forcing Ivy to push forward, branches snagging her clothes as she moved. Her breath came in shallow pants, and the forest around her seemed to stretch unnaturally, as if the very land shifted beneath her feet.
Then....A sharp crack.
The ground beneath her gave way.
Ivy gasped as she tumbled forward, the world tilting as she crashed down a steep embankment. She rolled, dirt and leaves catching in her hair, her limbs flailing for something to stop her fall.
Her body finally skidded to a halt at the base of a hollowed-out tree.
Pain flared through her arms and knees. Groaning, she pushed herself up, blinking against the dizzying rush in her head. And that's when she saw it.
The cat stood mere feet away, poised on the roots of a twisted, ancient oak. But its form... shifted.
One moment, it was sleek and feline; the next, its body elongated, stretched unnaturally, flickering between forms. For the briefest of moments, Ivy could swear she saw the outline of something human shadowy figure wrapped in dark mist.
Her breath hitched.
The cat creature tilted its head. Then, with a blink, it turned and darted behind the massive tree.
Ivy scrambled to her feet. "Oh no, you don't—"She lunged forward, rounding the trunk--And stopped dead in her tracks.
The cat was gone.
But in its place stood something else entirely.
A door.
Her heart pounded.
Not just any door--the door.
The same one from before, wrapped in thorny vines, pulsing with an unnatural energy. It hadn't been here a moment ago, and yet now it stood before her, solid, undeniable. The wind howled through the trees, and Ivy's ring burned against her skin.
Then, just as before, the door creaked open.
This time, she didn't just stand there.
This time, she stepped through.