Chapter Two: Whispers in the Shrine
The next morning, Sheila woke up with her skin burning.
Not the kind of surface warmth from fever or sunburn, but something deeper—like embers smoldering beneath her bones. She sat up in bed, the morning light from the window slicing across her face, and pulled down the collar of her pajama top. The skin just below her left shoulder blade was flushed red and faintly glowing.
It wasn't a bruise. It wasn't a rash.
It looked like… a crescent moon.
She stared at it in the mirror, blinking, willing her mind to find a reasonable explanation. But she couldn't forget what had happened on the rooftop—the pain, the vision, the boy.
The boy who had called her Queen.
Her thoughts tumbled like stones in a storm. She'd nearly convinced herself it was a hallucination. A stress-induced dream. But the glowing symbol beneath her skin disagreed.
And the pendant.
It sat silently in her desk drawer, wrapped in an old handkerchief. She hadn't dared touch it since last night. When she'd picked it up, the silver mist inside had swirled violently—almost like it was aware of her. She'd stuffed it away like a cursed thing, afraid to admit it made her feel... alive.
Downstairs, her mother's muffled voice floated in from the kitchen.
"Sheila-yah, you're going to be late!"
She quickly changed into her uniform and headed downstairs, ignoring the strange pulse of energy humming beneath her ribs.
---
☁️
The school day dragged like wet cement. Her mind was stuck in a loop: the rooftop, the mark, the strange boy, and the words still echoing in her ears.
"You were never meant to be ordinary."
She sat through Korean Literature barely hearing a word. Math was worse—numbers swam across her notebook like hieroglyphs. By the time lunch arrived, she'd made up her mind.
She needed answers. Real ones.
There was one place in the city rumored to be tied to the "old magic"—the kind of place local kids dared each other to visit on stormy nights. A forgotten shrine built in the mountains north of Seoul, hidden behind a tourist path near Bukhan Mountain. Sheila had read about it years ago when researching ancient myth for a school project.
Locals called it Woljeongsa—Moon's Quiet Temple.
Nobody went there anymore. Not since the fire.
---
☁️
That afternoon, she slipped away after her last class, taking the subway to Bukhansan. The wind had picked up, crisp and sharp as she followed the trail beyond the marked paths. Clouds pressed low over the mountaintops, casting everything in a strange, grey gloom.
It didn't take long to find the shrine. Tucked between crooked trees and half-covered in moss, it looked like a forgotten piece of a story. The wooden beams were splintered, and the torii gate leading in was cracked in the middle, like something massive had tried to break through it.
Sheila hesitated at the entrance. The air felt heavy. Electric.
Her fingers brushed the pendant in her pocket, and it pulsed with warmth, as if urging her forward.
She stepped inside.
---
The air changed.
It was like walking into another world—quieter, slower, suspended. The trees no longer rustled, and the chirping of birds died completely. The silence wasn't empty—it was watching her.
She stepped up to the main altar. The roof above was half collapsed, letting filtered light spill onto the moss-covered floor. A broken statue of a woman stood in the center—her eyes hollow, her hands once raised as if blessing the sky.
Something compelled Sheila to kneel.
She didn't know why. It felt right.
She placed the pendant on the altar stone, and the wind returned—swirling violently around her in a circle of dry leaves and dust. Her hair whipped across her face, her eyes stung, and then—
A voice. A whisper.
> "Queen of night and soul…
Return the Moon Key…
Return the light…"
Sheila gasped as the symbol on her back flared to life, burning so hot she screamed—but no sound came. She was alone, but she could feel something ancient awaken.
Suddenly, light surged from the pendant—silver and blinding. It lifted off the altar and floated in midair, spinning.
A hand reached from the light.
Not physical. Ethereal. Feminine. And wearing her face.
Sheila scrambled backward in horror as the vision vanished.
The pendant dropped to the altar with a soft chime, its glow gone.
Everything stilled.
The wind. The whisper. The burning.
It was as if it had never happened.
---
☁️
Sheila didn't remember running all the way back to the station. Her shoes were muddy, her hair tangled with leaves, and her pulse refused to settle.
She boarded the train in silence, people bumping past her without noticing the way her hands shook or the cut on her arm that wouldn't stop bleeding.
When she finally reached home, she stood in the bathroom staring at her reflection.
And then she saw it.
Not one—but three crescent marks now glowed faintly down her spine, like a crown being drawn from within.
Sheila gripped the sink, her breath shallow.
Whoever she was before…
She was coming back.
And the world wasn't ready for her return.