Online: Eiodolon Realms – Child of Ruin-Chapter 51 - 50 – Shadows Beneath the Ruin

The wind pressed through the gaps in the rotting wooden planks, carrying with it the hollow scent of dust and long-forgotten earth. The moon’s pale light barely reached the far corners of the shack, but it was enough to glint faintly off the medallion that hung against the old man’s chest.

Eron stood there, fists clenched so tightly his knuckles burned. The air between them was taut—thick enough to choke on.

"You’re going to tell me everything," Eron said, his voice rough, almost breaking. "Those bodies... that’s your family, isn’t it? Or were. And here I was, thinking you were just a bitter old man with too many insults in his head. But no. No, you’re worse."

The old man didn’t immediately respond. He stared at Eron, eyes clouded, unreadable—like the mist that hung low over marshes before dawn.

Eron stepped forward, his voice rising. "I thought maybe you were just... harsh. Crude. But you were a nice guy underneath it, I thought. A grumpy but decent old man. Turns out, you’re—" His voice cracked. "—you’re full of shit!"

The old man’s jaw tightened. "Watch your tongue, boy."

"Watch my—?!" Eron’s voice sharpened like a blade drawn from its sheath. "They were rotting in there. Wrapped up like sacks of meat! And you just... live here. Like it’s nothing!"

"I said, watch it." The old man’s voice boomed, rattling the wooden walls. The air in the shack trembled, and for a moment, Eron thought he felt the ground shift beneath his boots.

They stood there, breathing hard, eyes locked like two stubborn beasts refusing to back down.

But then, the old man exhaled. It wasn’t a sigh so much as a slow collapse of his frame, the fight bleeding out of his posture. His shoulders sagged, and his eyes—once sharp and cutting—seemed suddenly ancient, weighed down by years.

"You think I don’t know what’s in there?" the old man murmured.

Eron didn’t answer.

"You think I haven’t thought about it every day since... since it happened?" His voice trembled—not with fear, but with the strain of holding back something heavy.

Eron swallowed. His anger hadn’t vanished, but it was quieter now, tangled with something else.

The old man lowered himself onto a battered stool, the wood creaking under his weight. He rubbed his temples, then glanced toward the shuttered window where a sliver of moonlight cut across the floor.

"This place," he began, his tone slower, softer, "wasn’t always a village. In fact, it wasn’t even fit to be called that. Long before you or I set foot here, it was a ruin. Stones half-swallowed by moss, streets broken and choked with weeds. The land was dead—or near enough that no one wanted it. People whispered about it. Said it was cursed." 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

Eron shifted but stayed silent.

"I came here with my family because no one else would. Because land was land, and when you’ve got nowhere else to go, you take what you can get." His voice cracked slightly, but he pressed on. "We cleared the rubble. Built our home with our own hands. The air was heavy here... strange. Sometimes the wind would carry whispers, like voices from nowhere. My wife didn’t like it, but I told her it was just the wind through the stones."

The old man looked down at his hands—gnarled, scarred, trembling. "I should’ve listened to her."

He fell silent for a moment, and the only sound was the faint groan of the walls in the wind.

"It happened during the winter. The cold came early that year, harder than any before. We burned through our stores too fast, and the forest... it wasn’t safe anymore. Wolves roamed too close, and other things—things that didn’t move like wolves. One by one, the families that had joined us tried to leave. But most of them didn’t make it far."

Eron’s throat felt tight.

"My youngest girl got sick first. Just a cough, I thought. But it spread. Fever, shaking, and then... nothing. My wife followed a week later. My eldest son, a month after. I buried them... but this ground—" He gestured to the floor. "—it doesn’t give bodies back to the earth. You put them in the soil, and it holds them like a jealous thing. No decay. No peace."

Eron’s eyes widened.

"That’s when I learned the truth," the old man said, voice low. "This wasn’t a ruin because of war or famine. It was abandoned because the land itself was bound. The stones, the soil, even the air—it’s all tied to something deep below. Something that doesn’t let go."

"And you..." Eron’s voice was hoarse. "You’ve been trying to bring them back."

The old man met his gaze. "What would you have done? If it were your mother? Your brother?"

Eron looked away. His jaw worked, but no words came.

"I tried the healers first. Then the priests. They came, they prayed, they left. Said the souls had gone too far to call back. But the land... the land whispered to me. Told me there was a way. Rituals, sigils, old magic buried in books no priest would touch."

"You used forbidden magic," Eron said flatly.

"I used what I had left," the old man snapped, then sighed again. "I tried. And I failed. Again and again. Every time I thought I was close, the bodies stayed cold, the eyes stayed shut. But the land kept them... perfect. Like the moment they left me. The land spoke to me it told me if i did what it asked it will bring them back."

Eron finally looked at him. The anger in his eyes was still there, but now it was tangled with something harder to place, grief, maybe. Pity, even.

"You can hate me for it, boy," the old man said, "but I’ll keep trying until the day I can’t lift my hands. Because if there’s even a whisper of a chance... I can’t let them go."

The shack was silent again, but it was no longer the brittle silence of accusation. It was heavier now, shaped by the weight of what had been spoken and what hadn’t.

The old man’s gaze drifted to the floor, to where the boards were warped slightly, as though something beneath them pressed upward. "If you want the whole truth, you’ll have it. But it’s not a story you walk away from unchanged."

Eron didn’t move.

"Sit," the old man said quietly. "And listen."

And with that, the old man began speaking again.