Midnight clung to Blackthorn Hollow like a suffocating shroud. Eleanor limped behind Abigail, her infected ankle a throbbing mass of fire beneath the skin. The vial's bitter draught had dulled the pain, but not the creeping chill in her veins—a cold that whispered of voids and hungers beyond flesh. The standing stones loomed ahead, their silhouettes warped by the feverish shimmer of the air. Above them, the stars had begun to move.
Not the gentle arc of constellations, but a sickly undulation, as if the sky itself were a liquid curtain stirred by unseen hands. The moon hung low and swollen, its craters distended into leering faces.
"It's starting," Abigail murmured. She carried the bowl of mingled bloods carefully, its surface rippling as though stirred by invisible currents. "The alignment."
Eleanor gripped the dagger tighter. The bone handle felt porous, alive, as if it might sprout tendrils. "What do we do?"
The girl's green eyes flickered—uncertainty? Fear? "We bind the Door. You'll speak the name. I'll carve the seals. And if we're lucky…" She trailed off, setting the bowl at the foot of the central stone.
"If we're lucky?"
Abigail didn't answer. She dipped her fingers into the blood mixture and began painting symbols on the stones—spirals within triangles, eyes within eyes. Each glyph sizzled as it dried, emitting thin curls of smoke that stank of burnt hair.
Eleanor's vision blurred. The stars pulsed in time with her heartbeat, their light refracted into colors that hurt—ultraviolet, infrared, hues without names. She blinked, and for a moment, the stones weren't stones at all, but gnarled fingers clawing upward from the earth.
"Eleanor…"
The voice came from everywhere. The ground. The sky. The spaces between her ribs.
"Ignore it," Abigail snapped. "Focus on the dagger. When I tell you, cut your palm and press it to the stone. Your blood holds the name now. It's the key."
"My blood?" Eleanor's throat tightened. "You never said—"
"There's a lot I never said." Abigail's face was gaunt in the eldritch light. "But we're out of time. Look."
The valley trembled. From the direction of the church, a guttural roar tore through the night—half-animal, half-machine. The sheriff's shotgun barked once, twice, then fell silent.
"Burke," Eleanor whispered.
"Won't matter soon," Abigail said. "Now. The cut."
Eleanor pressed the dagger's edge to her palm. The pain was sharp, clean. Blood welled, black in the moonlight. As she pressed her hand to the central stone, the world split.
—She floats in a starless void. Before her yawns the Door, its edges fractal and infinite. Through it, something stirs—a mass of glowing tendrils, eyes, and teeth that exists in angles beyond comprehension. It sees her. It knows her. It wants her.
"ELEANOR VOSS… YOU HAVE OPENED THE WAY…"
The voice is the grind of tectonic plates, the scream of dying stars. She tries to pull back, but the void clings like tar. The tendrils reach for her, each tip splitting into smaller mouths, each mouth chanting her name—
A hand yanked her backward. Reality snapped into place with a sound like shattering glass. Abigail stood beside her, the girl's own blood-smeared hand gripping Eleanor's wrist.
"Don't look," Abigail hissed. "Just speak. The name—it's in you now. Say it."
Eleanor's mouth filled with the taste of iron and static. The word rose unbidden, a syllable that bent the air like a gravitational wave:
"YOG-SOTHOTH."
The stones screamed.
A geyser of black light erupted from the central monolith, tearing through the clouds. The ground fissured, tendrils of luminous mist spiraling upward. From the cracks poured shapes—pale, multi-jointed things with too many eyes, chittering as they skittered toward the village.
Abigail swore, grabbing Eleanor's arm. "It's not working! The blood—it's not pure enough!"
"What do you mean? We followed the—"
"My father's taint runs deeper than we thought. His blood… it's bonded to the Door. We need more. Yours."
Eleanor recoiled. "You said my blood was the key!"
"It is. But the lock's rusted shut." Abigail's gaze was desperate, her human facade fraying. Faint scales glinted at her temples. "A sacrifice, Eleanor. Just a little more—"
A gunshot rang out.
Sheriff Burke staggered into the clearing, his left arm hanging limp, blood soaking his shirt. His right hand clutched the shotgun, smoke curling from the barrel. One of the pale creatures lay twitching at his feet, its head vaporized.
"Step away from her," he growled at Abigail.
The girl bared her teeth. "You're too late, lawman. The Door's already open."
"Then I'll close it." He aimed at the central stone. "With this."
The shotgun roared. The stone splintered, cracks racing up its surface. The black light flickered, and the tendrils recoiled with a collective shriek.
"No!" Abigail lunged, her form blurring—scales, claws, a flash of serpentine tail. The sheriff fired again, the shot tearing through her shoulder. She fell, her blood pooling mercury-bright.
Eleanor froze, torn between instincts—help her, stop him, run. The sheriff reloaded, his hands steady. "Last chance, Doctor. Walk away."
The ground heaved. From the largest fissure, a claw emerged—obsidian, segmented, larger than a man. Then another. And another.
Caleb Blackthorn hauled himself into the world.
He was no longer the mummified prisoner. The Void had remade him. His body was a grotesque amalgam—human torso fused with insectoid legs, his head a bulbous mass of eyes and dripping mandibles. His voice, when he spoke, was a chorus of wasps and breaking glass:
"FATHER… SENDSSS… HIS REGARDSSS…"
The sheriff emptied his shotgun into Caleb. The creature laughed, ichor oozing from wounds that sealed instantly.
Abigail dragged herself to Eleanor's side, her breath shallow. "The dagger," she gasped. "Stab his heart. The original heart. It's the only anchor left."
"Where?!"
"Follow the blood. The… the human blood."
Caleb lunged. The sheriff vanished beneath a flurry of claws. Eleanor dove, rolling beneath a thrashing limb, the dagger humming in her grip. Caleb's underbelly pulsed—a vestigial human ribcage, encasing a shriveled, blackened heart.
She plunged the dagger in.
The world went silent.
Caleb stiffened. His many eyes widened, then imploded, one by one. The monstrous body crumbled to ash, leaving only the dagger embedded in the dirt.
The fissures sealed. The tendrils dissolved. The stars stilled.
Silence.
Then Abigail began to laugh.
She stood, her wound already knitting. "Oh, Eleanor. You really think it's that easy?" She gestured to the central stone. The dagger's blade glowed faintly, its etchings rearranging into a new phrase:
THE DOOR REMAINS.
"One sacrifice closed it," Abigail said. "But to keep it closed?" She stepped closer, her eyes fully reptilian now. "It requires a… guardian."
Eleanor scrambled back. "You."
"Me." Abigail's smile split her face, revealing needle teeth. "But I can't stay here alone. I need an anchor. A human soul. Yours."
The ground erupted. Stone hands seized Eleanor's ankles, dragging her toward the central monolith. Abigail chanted, the words peeling the air like skin.
"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Yog-Sothoth Blackthorn Hollow wgah'nagl fhtagn!"
The sheriff's hand burst from the dirt, clutching Eleanor's wrist. His face, half-crushed, mouth a ruin, spat one word:
"RUN."
She wrenched free, fleeing as the stones collapsed inward, Abigail's howl of rage echoing behind her.
The Hollow burned.