Return to Ashbrook - Chapter Four: The Circle

I didn’t remember opening the car door, but suddenly I was outside, my breath spilling into the fog. The line of figures stood silently across Main Street, their pale faces glowing faintly in the headlights. Not a single one moved. Not until I took a step forward.

Then they all tilted their heads, in perfect unison.

The hum returned, low and vibrating, coming not from the ground this time but from them. My bones shook with it. I tried to turn, to run back to the car, but my body wouldn’t obey. My legs moved on their own, carrying me toward the circle that had formed in the town square.

The fountain was just as I remembered—cracked, dry, choked with moss. The crowd parted silently to let me through. And when I reached the centre, I saw it: a shape rising from the fountain’s basin.

It wasn’t stone. It wasn’t metal. It pulsed, like living flesh, twisting slowly in the air as though it breathed.

My parents stood closest. Their smiles stretched impossibly wide, eyes glassy and white. My mother’s lips moved, but the words came not from her mouth—they came from all of them, every face surrounding me, layered into one voice:

“Ashbrook accepts you.”

The pulsing mass shifted, and I saw something move beneath its translucent surface. A hand pressed outward, straining against the membrane, followed by another. Dozens of them. Tiny, pale hands clawing, reaching, scratching to get free.

Children’s voices echoed inside my head. Some I recognised. Some I didn’t. They screamed, but not in pain. It was joy. They wanted me there.

The air thickened, and I felt the ground tilt beneath me. My knees buckled. The fountain’s flesh-like surface opened, splitting into a dark maw, and a stench rolled out that made my eyes burn.

I tried to scream, but nothing came out. My mother stepped closer, her grin trembling with excitement, and whispered directly into my ear:

“It’s your turn.”

Hands erupted from the pit, dozens of them, wrapping around my arms, my legs, dragging me down. The last thing I saw before the dark closed over me was every face leaning closer, watching, smiling, as if I were the final piece they’d been waiting for.

Source: Some or all of the content was generated using an AI language model