Elion

July 6, 1985. Saturday, 5:30 a.m. Timber Hollow. The Webb house. Zoe hadn't slept. She sat on the bed, legs tucked under her, staring at her left wrist. The mark had fully manifested—a thin spiral glowing pale blue, as if cold fire had been injected into her vein. It didn't hurt. Didn't burn. It was simply there, and that was what made it horrifying. She tried to wipe it off with a damp cloth—useless. Then she soaped it, scrubbed with a washcloth until the skin turned red. The mark stayed, not even fading. Zoe pulled her hoodie sleeve down to her knuckles and clamped the cuff in her fist. The house was quiet. Her mother and father were asleep. Outside, a light rain drizzled—the remnants of last night's storm. Somewhere in the distance, from the direction of the woods, the hum continued. Now it never stopped, just grew louder or softer, like someone's measured breathing. The phone buzzed on the nightstand. Zoe flinched, grabbed the receiver before the second ring. Leo's voice—tired, raspy: "Did you see it?" "The mark. Yeah." "I've got one too. It moved to my wrist. Green. Glowing." "I tried to scrub it off." "Me too. I held a soldering iron to it. Not a trace." Zoe squeezed her eyes shut. Something tightened in her chest—not fear, more like anger. At herself, at that thing, at the fact that they'd gone there at all. "Did Tim call?" she asked. "Not yet." "Mira?" "Quiet. But I know—she's got one too." Zoe switched the phone to her other ear, stood, and walked to the window. A grey veil covered the sky, but to the west, over the woods, something glowed—a faint lilac haze, as if an invisible fire burned there. "Leo, what have we done?" "I don't know yet. But I want to understand. I'm going to the library today. Newspaper archives. Maybe I'll find something similar." "You think this has happened before?" "Everything has happened before. We just never looked." She didn't answer. Leo paused too, then said: "Meet at the diner at eight. Come." And hung up. July 6, 1985. Saturday, 7:10 a.m. Timber Hollow. The Turners' garage. Leo put down the phone and stared at his hand. The mark glowed a steady green, like an indicator on an old amplifier. He turned his wrist—the light didn't change. He took a magnifying glass and examined the outline: the spiral was made of tiny dots, as if luminous dust had been driven under his skin. And those dots moved. Slowly, barely noticeably, but they moved. Rearranged themselves. He timed it by the wall clock and watched. In five minutes, the pattern changed: another loop appeared. The mark was growing. "Well, well," he whispered, setting down the magnifying glass. He picked up the receiver, twisted the tuning dial. The police frequency was silent. The army band—short exchanges, but he couldn't make out the words through the interference. Only two words came through clearly: "...concrete arrived..." Concrete. They were going to fill the crater. Leo jumped up, grabbed his jacket, and ran out of the garage, forgetting his headphones. July 6, 1985. Saturday, 7:30 a.m. Timber Hollow. Tim's house. The backyard. Tim sat on the overturned tire, looking at his mark—orange, like an ember. It pulsed in time with his heartbeat, and warmth radiated from it. He pressed a finger to it—hot. He tried to cover it with a bandage, but the bandage fell off immediately. Then he took out his knife and tried to slice off the top layer of skin. The blade slid across without causing harm. The skin wouldn't cut. Tim pressed harder—the knife slipped, leaving a red streak, but didn't pierce the skin. The mark only glowed brighter. "Son of a bitch," he breathed and tossed the knife aside. The phone rang inside the house. Tim didn't answer. He knew—it was Leo or Zoe. They'd all seen the same thing. And right now he didn't feel like talking. He wanted to go back to the crater and scream at that thing to make it answer. What had it done to them? Why? He stood, slung his backpack over his shoulder, and walked to the gate. On the way, he noticed the air smelled different—not of gasoline or cut grass. Of wet iron and ozone. The smell before a strong thunderstorm. But the storm had already passed. July 6, 1985. Saturday, 8:15 a.m. Mo's Diner. Mo hadn't opened yet, but they sat on the bench by the entrance. Four of them. Each with a mark under their sleeve. No conversation. They all just looked at each other in silence, and that was enough. Zoe spoke first: "Mine is blue. Yours?" she nodded at Tim. "Orange. Leo's green. Mira's..." he turned to her. "Silver," Mira answered quietly, not raising her eyes. "Four colors," Leo muttered. "Four people. It sorted us. Like... channels." "Channels for what?" Zoe asked. "For it to hear us. Or the other way around—for us to hear it." Mira raised her hand and rolled up her sleeve. Her mark was brightest of all—silver light flowed like mercury. She looked at it and said: "I can hear him. Not words. More like... a feeling. He's calling. He wants us to come back." "No way," Tim crossed his arms. "Enough. We already went. Now we've got marks that won't go away. I'm not going back there." "You'll have to," Leo replied. "I heard on the receiver—they filled the crater with concrete." "What?" Zoe spun around. "Last night. While we were running from the soldiers, they brought the mix and poured it over the egg. Now there's a concrete slab." "Good!" Tim exclaimed. "So it's buried. End of story." "You really believe concrete will stop him?" Mira asked quietly. Tim opened his mouth, but nothing came out. "I'll go check," Mira said and stood. "No. We'll go together," Zoe said. Leo nodded. Tim cursed, grabbed his backpack, and stood last. July 6, 1985. Saturday, 9:00 a.m. The hill above the crater. The forest had changed overnight. The trees were the same, but the grass around the hill had withered, curled, yellowed, as if scorched by invisible fire. There were no birds. None at all. Only silence and the smell of ozone, now thicker. They crawled to the edge of the hill and looked down. The crater was gone. In its place lay a grey concrete slab—round, about twenty feet in diameter, with metal staples along the edges. Not a single soldier around. The camp had been dismantled. Only the barrier tape fluttered on its posts, the wind tugging at the scraps. "They left," Tim said in surprise. "Took off. Abandoned everything." "Or fled," Leo corrected. "Why?" "Look at the slab." The concrete surface was covered in cracks. Thin as cobwebs, they radiated from the center, and from them seeped lilac light—the same as last night. The slab pulsed. Rhythmically, evenly, like a person breathing in sleep. "He's alive under the concrete," Mira whispered. "They can't bury him." "That's impossible," Leo breathed. "The concrete's a foot thick. It should have suffocated... or been crushed." "He doesn't breathe like we do. He's different." Tim was already climbing down the slope. Zoe tried to stop him, but he just waved her off. Within minutes, all four stood at the edge of the slab. The ground around it was littered with abandoned equipment: crumpled tents, an overturned generator, scattered tools. They'd fled in a hurry. Tim bent down, picked up a crowbar—one of the soldiers had dropped it. He walked to the center of the slab, swung, and struck. The sound was muffled, like a bell. The slab didn't crack, but the lilac light flared brighter for a second, and a new crack ran across the concrete. "Don't hit it," Mira said. "You're angering him." "I'm angering him?!" Tim threw the crowbar aside. "This thing is sitting in my hand and growing! Let him be angry! Let him come out and answer!" "Quiet!" Zoe cut in. "Do you hear that?" They froze. From under the slab came a sound. Not a hum—a tapping. Rhythmic, steady. As if someone was scratching from inside. Bam. Bam. Bam. "That's a heartbeat," Leo said. "No," Mira shook her head. "Those are fingers. He's tapping with his fingers." She knelt and pressed her palm to the concrete. The slab was warm. Even hot. And it vibrated—not from the tapping, but from something else. From words that sounded beneath the surface. "What are you doing?" Zoe moved toward her, but Leo held her back by the shoulder. Mira didn't answer. She closed her eyes and listened. And inside her head, something opened—like a door she hadn't known how to close. The voice under the concrete didn't speak in a language. It showed images: darkness, comfort, hunger, waiting. And a question—wordless, but clear: "Do you see me?" "I see you," Mira whispered. And in that moment, a finger slid out from the nearest crack. It was thin, long, with four joints instead of three. The skin was pale, translucent, with lilac veins showing through. The finger slowly curled, felt the air, and stopped, pointed toward Mira. "Oh my God," Zoe breathed. Tim stepped back, Leo froze. Mira didn't move. The finger trembled and beckoned her—a barely perceptible motion, like a child calling someone over to show a secret. "Don't you dare," Tim said. "Mira, don't you dare touch it." Mira opened her eyes. Looked at the finger. Then at her own hands. And didn't move. "I'm not afraid," she said aloud. "Do you hear me? I'm not afraid of you." The finger paused. Then slowly withdrew back into the crack. The light under the slab dimmed, the cracks stopped widening. It fell quiet. "You spoke to him," Leo said. "Yes." "What did he say?" "He asked if I could see him. I said yes. And he... calmed down." "He? You already know it's a 'he'?" Mira stood, brushed off her knees. "He's alive. Sentient. And he's scared. He doesn't understand where he ended up." "Then let him go back to space," Tim muttered. "He can't," Mira replied. "He's here. And he'll keep growing." July 6, 1985. Saturday, 12:30 p.m. Timber Hollow. Public Library. The Timber Hollow library occupied a one-story brick building next to the fire station. Inside, it smelled of dust, old glue, and a hint of mildew. At the counter, Mrs. Donovan, an elderly lady with glasses on a chain, dozed. Aside from them, the hall was empty. Leo settled in the corner at a microfiche table. He scrolled through the local paper, the Timber Hollow Herald, over the past half century. Articles about fairs, mayoral elections, record pumpkin harvests. Nothing similar. He broadened the search—"anomalies," "unexplained phenomena," "meteorites." He found a note from 1937. Short, on the third page: "Strange lights over the mines. Old-timers say it bodes ill." A week later, another: "Miner found unconscious at the face. Keeps babbling about a voice from underground." And that was it. The topic vanished, as if someone had closed the file. Leo noted the dates, put away the reel. Then he dug through the local history section and found a thin, stapled booklet titled Legends and Lore of Eastern Tennessee. It mentioned "beings from under the hills" that feed on fear, and that the only way to banish them is to seal them in the earth through a voluntary sacrifice. The author cited oral traditions of the Cherokee. Leo read the paragraph three times. Then he slipped the booklet into his backpack—Mrs. Donovan wouldn't notice anyway. He walked out of the library, his footsteps echoing in the empty alley. He needed to tell the others. But first—to check one hunch. About the mines. July 6, 1985. Saturday, 3:00 p.m. Timber Hollow. The Sanders house. The attic. Mira returned home alone. Her mother was at work, the second shift. Mira locked herself in the attic and sat on the mattress. The notebook opened by itself to the page where she'd drawn the cracked egg last night. Now, beside the egg, a finger had appeared—she hadn't drawn it, but it was there, as if someone had added it while she slept. She picked up the pencil and kept drawing. Her hand moved on its own. From the crack in the egg, a figure emerged—thin, tall, with indistinct outlines. Around the figure, four spirals: blue, orange, green, silver. Mira looked at the drawing and understood: this wasn't just a picture. It was a message. She was being shown what would come. The figure—the one under the concrete. And the spirals—the four of them. Bound to him. And that bond would only grow stronger. She turned the page and wrote on a fresh sheet in pencil: "He is not an enemy. He is a prisoner. We must help him." Then she crossed out the last word and wrote: "Understand." A knock at the door. Tim. He didn't wait for an invitation, just walked in and sat on the floor against the wall. "You okay?" "Fine." "Liar. I saw your face out there by the slab. You talked to him." "So what?" "So that." Tim paused, spinning a lighter in his fingers. "I'm scared, Mira. Not of that thing. Of what it's doing to you. You're changing." "Maybe that's a good thing." "Nothing good about it. You're becoming... not here." Mira looked at him, and for a second her face softened. "I'm here, Tim. I'm always here. I just hear what you don't. But that doesn't mean I'm gone." Tim flicked the lighter on and off. Click, flame, click. "Fine. If you say you can hear him—maybe you'll hear something useful. Where's it hiding? How do we stop it?" "He's not hiding. He's waiting. He'll come out soon." "When?" Mira closed the notebook and stood. "Tonight." July 6, 1985. Saturday, 8:40 p.m. The concrete slab over the crater. The sun was setting, and the forest drowned in twilight. They stood by the slab again—the four of them, like last night, but now everything was different. They weren't hiding. There were no soldiers. The slab lay before them, and the cracks on it glowed bright, pulsing in the same rhythm as their marks. "Are you sure you want this?" Zoe asked. "It's not that I want it. It's happening," Mira answered. She was the first to walk to the center of the slab. She knelt and placed both palms on the concrete. In that same instant, the light under the slab exploded—lilac, blinding, it shot into the sky, and cracks ran across the entire surface. The concrete screeched, groaned, began to crumble. "Get back!" Zoe shouted, but Mira stayed in place. From under the debris, it rose. First—a hand. Long, with four-jointed fingers, covered in skin pale as moonlight. Then a shoulder, a head. The creature climbed out of the pit slowly, but there was neither clumsiness nor weakness in it. It simply wasn't in a hurry. It was tall—seven feet, maybe more. Its body was thin, elongated. Its face—without eyes, but with deep hollows where they should have been. In place of a mouth—a thin slit. The skin was silver-grey, with veins that glowed lilac. It stood on the broken concrete and looked at the four children—not with eyes, but they felt that gaze in every cell. "Elion," Mira whispered. "What?" Leo asked. "That's his name. I don't know where from. I just know." The creature slowly tilted its head. It didn't speak—but a sound arose in their minds, low, soft, like the hum of a distant bell: "You came." Tim clenched his fists, the mark on his hand blazing brighter. Zoe gripped Mark's bracelet. Leo stood frozen, and only Mira stepped forward. "We're here," she said. "What do you want?" The creature didn't answer. It raised its hand, and from its fingers shot glowing threads—the same ones that had touched their wrists last night. But now they didn't sting, didn't burn. They softly coiled around each of the four, binding them to the being. "Don't touch them," Tim whispered. "Don't touch them!.." But it was too late. The threads were already on them. They didn't choke, didn't pull. They just held. And each of them felt something alien inside themselves—warmth, breath, presence. "It's connecting us," Zoe said. "Not physically. Something... deeper." "The marks are anchors," Leo said, his voice trembling. "We're part of it now." "No," Mira said quietly. "It's part of us." The creature—Elion—opened its fingers, and the threads withdrew. It no longer moved. It just stood and looked at them with its hollows, and in those hollows, something was being born. Not light. Something like... curiosity. Then behind them came a crackle. Lights flared in the bushes, shouts erupted. The soldiers had returned—not all of them, but enough. With rifles, with dogs, with loud commands. "Run!" Tim yelled, grabbed Mira's arm, and bolted into the woods. Zoe and Leo followed. Behind them, shots rang out—warning shots, into the air. Dogs barked. But when they looked back, Elion was gone. On the broken slab, only glowing imprints of long feet remained. And silence. July 6, 1985. Saturday, 10:20 p.m. Fox Gulch. The way back. They ran a long time, weaving through the woods, until they reached the creek. There they collapsed on the wet grass—exhausted, out of breath. No one spoke a word. Then Tim sat up and looked at his mark. It had grown bigger. And brighter. And new loops had appeared along the edges. "It's with us," he said. "Even now. I can feel it." "Me too," Zoe admitted. "Like someone standing behind me. But no one's there." Leo checked his sensor, but it wasn't working—the batteries were dead. So he just looked at the sky. Clear, starry, without a single cloud. And to the west, over the woods, a thin band of lilac radiance rose—like the northern lights, only lower and more menacing. Mira wrapped her arms around her knees and said quietly: "Everything changes now." And she was right.