The forest shimmered with a quiet pulse, as if the trees themselves breathed in rhythm with Elara’s heartbeat. The lantern bobbed ahead, casting golden ripples across the mossy ground. She followed, half in awe, half in disbelief until a sudden rustle shattered the hush.
A blur of silver darted across her path.
Elara stumbled back, heart pounding. From the underbrush emerged a fox. It was not just any fox, but one with fur like moonlight and eyes like polished obsidian. It stared at her with unsettling familiarity.
“You startled me,” she whispered, clutching her sketchbook like a shield.
The fox tilted its head. “Do you not recognize me?”
Its voice wasn’t spoken, but resonated inside her, like a memory she hadn’t lived yet. Elara flipped open her sketchbook with trembling fingers. There, on the third page, was the fox. Silver furred fox with black eyes. She had drawn it weeks ago, in a fit of inspiration she couldn’t explain.
“But how?” she breathed.
“I am what you made me,” the fox replied, circling her slowly. “But I am also older than your world. You’ve stepped into a place where imagination and memory intertwine. This realm, the Lantern Reach, is shaped by what you believe, what you fear, and what you’ve forgotten.”
Elara’s mind spun. “Why me?”
The fox paused beneath a tree whose leaves glowed with soft violet light. “Because you see what others dismiss. You listen to silence. You draw truth wrapped in myth. That makes you Lanternbound.”
The lantern pulsed brighter, as if affirming the fox’s words.
“There are others like you,” the fox continued. “Some lost. Some hiding. Some waiting. But only you opened the door.”
Elara knelt beside the fox, her sketchbook open on her lap. “What happens now?”
The fox’s eyes gleamed. “Now, you begin to remember what you never knew. And you must make a choice. Will you shape this world, or let it shape you?”
Above them, the trees whispered in a language older than time. And somewhere deep within Lantern Reach, something stirred.