Diya 
Episode 2: The Mark Beneath the Skin
The town was on edge. Flyers with the missing boy’s photo were taped to streetlamps, shop windows, and the bulletin board in front of the town hall. No one said it out loud, but everyone suspected the woods. The same way they always had.
Evelyn couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being watched. Every time she passed a mirror or dark window, she expected to see someone standing behind her. The mark on her palm had begun to itch and then burn. When she peeled back a scab, she found not blood but something like ash beneath her skin.
She showed her grandmother, who pressed a cold cloth to her hand and murmured a prayer in a language Evelyn didn’t recognize.
“It’s not just a mark,” her grandmother said. “It’s a tether.”
“To her?” Evelyn asked.
The old woman nodded slowly, hands trembling. “She chooses those who awaken her. She clings to them until she’s strong enough to cross over.”
Evelyn wanted to scoff, to dismiss it as superstition, but she couldn’t. Not after what she’d seen. Not with that burning symbol pulsing in her flesh.
That night, Evelyn returned to the photo she’d taken of the tree symbol. She brightened the image, enhanced the contrast, and something new appeared. Faint scratches above the symbol, almost too shallow to see. Letters. A name.
Heart pounding, Evelyn searched the town archives the next day, using her grandmother’s old library card. Among dusty newspapers and brittle parchment, she found court records from 1749. Testimonies. A map of the original settlement. And one curious note written by a judge:
“Burned at the stake, but the fire did not consume her. Her screams did not end.”
The map showed something else—an old chapel once deep in the woods, marked with a cross and the words Sanctum Obscura. It had long since disappeared from newer maps. That night, Evelyn traced the path from the map and decided she had to find it.
She didn’t tell anyone. She didn’t want to be stopped.
Armed with her phone, a flashlight, and a small iron pendant her grandmother slipped into her pocket without a word, Evelyn stepped into the woods just after sunset.
This time, the forest didn’t resist her. It welcomed her.
The trees swayed, though there was no wind. Shadows seemed to step aside. The deeper she went, the quieter it became, until not even her footsteps made a sound. And then, through the silence, she heard the sound of weeping.
It led her to the ruins of a chapel, overgrown and half-swallowed by the earth. Its walls were crumbling, and the altar inside was scorched black. Symbols like the one on her palm were carved into every surface.
She approached the altar and felt the ground pulse beneath her feet. Her vision blurred. A voice, clearer than any whisper, rang through her skull.
“You brought me back.”
The air grew thick, the sky darkened unnaturally, and out of the altar rose a figure—smoke and shadow in the shape of a woman. Charred skin, empty eyes, and lips that split in a jagged smile.
“You wear my mark.”
Evelyn staggered back, the pendant in her pocket burning hot. She pulled it out, and the witch hissed, retreating slightly.
“You think iron will save you? Foolish blood.”
Then everything exploded—branches cracked, the forest screamed, and Evelyn was thrown backward. When she came to, she was lying at the edge of the woods, alone, pendant still in her clenched fist.
The mark on her palm was gone.
But on her arm, new symbols had appeared—glowing faintly beneath the skin like coals.
And deep in the forest, the weeping had stopped.
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