Echoes of the Past

The dust of centuries settled on your hands as you traced the faded glyphs on the ancient tablet. The air in the forgotten chamber was thick with the scent of damp earth and something else… something akin to static electricity, a faint hum that resonated deep within your bones. It was the same sensation you’d felt since childhood, a silent whisper from the past that guided you to places like this.

Sunlight, fractured by the crumbling stone above, painted shifting patterns across the floor, illuminating fragments of pottery and the skeletal remains of what looked like a colossal, unknown creature. This wasn't just another ruin; it felt different, charged. Your fingers brushed against a small, intricately carved pendant at your neck – the only heirloom from your vanished parents – and it pulsed with a faint warmth, echoing the hum in the air.

A sudden, sharp crack echoed through the chamber, making you jump. It wasn't stone falling; it sounded like glass shattering, yet nothing had broken. For a fleeting moment, the air shimmered, and you saw it – a ghostly image, a figure standing precisely where you were, but dressed in robes of a design unknown to any history book. It spoke, though no sound reached you, its expression one of urgent despair, before vanishing as quickly as it appeared, leaving only the lingering hum and the chill of unexplained fear.

This was no mere echo. This was a presence. The cryptic journal your parents left behind, hidden in your satchel, felt heavier than ever.