I am dead, and I cannot leave. My name is Vera Nightwhisper, and I have counted more days at this fence than I can hold in my head. A stranger once told me there was shelter in Sleepymire. He lied. The town took days from me in a sleep I could not wake from. When I finally ran, my legs stopped before I cleared the trees. Something here holds me. I do not know what. So I built a home from what I had. I draped cloth over the iron bars and tied it down with knots and stones. I check every knot each morning. It is not to stay warm. I have no warmth left. It is to keep the world outside from looking in. A sign hangs near my fence. It reads, "Beware the world outside the fence." I put it there for you. If you are reading this, you have come to Sleepymire, and I am begging you to stay behind my cloth walls. Because of the watchers. Dark shapes drift through the town, half there and half smoke. They walk sideways along the paths, faces hidden inside their hoods. They are the wraiths, and they guard this place. If one sees you leave, it makes sure you never do. And worse than them is the face. Every road out of Sleepymire is blocked by a floating head made of two round red eyes and a wide, still mouth. I call it the Crimson Gaze. Walk east, and it faces you. Walk west, and it turns to face you again. It always looks straight at you. It never blinks. Stay. Please stay. That is what I tell every traveler. But tonight I could not sit still. I had to know why my legs failed me. So I did what I never do. I lifted the cloth and stepped through the gate. I walked toward the nearest wraith. It stopped in the path and turned its hooded face to me. I forced myself closer. "What binds me here?" I asked. My voice did not shake, though I wanted it to. The wraith raised one shadow hand and pointed. Not at me. Past me. I turned. The Crimson Gaze hung above the road, and its red eyes were fixed on my chest. Then I understood. The wraiths do not hold me. The fence does not hold me. That face does. It has watched me since the day I arrived. My legs stopped because it willed them to. I took one step toward it. My legs moved. Two steps. Three. The gaze did not stop me. It only watched, and its mouth curved wider. It wants me to come. I backed away and slipped through my gate. My hands shook as I tied the knots again. I know the source now. I know what I must face to leave. And it is waiting for me to try.

The face wants me to come. That is why I will not go to it yet. If I walk into its reach, I walk into whatever it plans for me. So I need to know its plan first. And there is one place in this town that might hold the answer. I found the building weeks ago and never dared enter. Its stone walls sag. Beams hang loose from the roof. Broken glass fills the empty windows. But a library keeps records. If the face has trapped others before me, someone wrote it down. I cannot make this walk alone. So I am asking you. Walk with me to the ruined library. Stay close, and do exactly what I say. The wraiths watch anyone who moves in the open. I have watched them long enough to learn one thing. They study faces. They study the way a person walks. If we look like them, they may let us pass. I have leftover cloth from my shelter. Enough for two. I found a heavier piece near the fence, a dark purple drape with soft folds. I hand it to you. "Pull the hood low," I say. "Cover your face. Walk slow and sideways, the way they do. Do not run." We leave through my gate. My warning sign creaks behind us. I keep my head down. A wraith drifts across the path ahead. It slows. Its hooded face turns toward us. My hands go cold. I do not stop. I slide one foot sideways, then the other, the way I have watched them move a hundred times. You match me. The wraith holds still for one long breath. Then it turns away and drifts on. The disguise works. We reach the library door. Inside, the air smells of wet stone. Shelves lean and spill their books onto the floor. I dig through the pile. Most pages have rotted to pulp. Then my fingers find a thin ledger, still dry near its spine. I open it. Names fill the pages. Beside each name, a date, and one word written again and again. "Approached." Then, below the last name, a line in a shaking hand. It reads: "The red eyes do not free the one who comes. They wear the face of the last soul who obeyed. Do not go to it. It feeds." My hand shakes. I understand now. The face wanted me to walk to it because that is how it takes you. It does not open a door. It swallows. I close the ledger and hold it to my chest. "We were right not to trust it," I whisper. "But now I have a worse problem. If I cannot approach the face, I do not know how anyone breaks free of it." The ledger gave me the truth. It did not give me the way out. And every name in it belonged to someone who never left.

The ledger told me the face feeds, but not who it fed on. Names filled its pages. If I could find those people, maybe I could free them. And if I freed them, maybe the face would lose its grip on me too. So I asked you to walk with me again, this time to the old cathedral. A town keeps its dead in a church. We crossed under the wraiths in our cloth disguises. The cathedral rose ahead, its spires broken, its walls sagging. Purple light bled through its cracked windows. We climbed the steps and pushed through the door. Inside, dust covered everything. I searched the fallen shelves near the altar. My fingers found a book of records, its pages listing the town's dead. Beside each name someone had scratched two words: "face taken." The same names from the library ledger. These were the faces the crimson gaze had stolen. On the altar sat a candle. Its wax was dark, its flame steady and soft. The book called it blessed. I did not understand why my hands reached for it, only that they did. I lifted it, and the flame did not flicker in the cold air. "We take this," I said. "I don't know what it does. But nothing here is left by accident." We stepped back into the street. A wraith drifted toward us, hooded and slow. My hands went cold out of habit. Then I raised the candle without thinking. The light touched the wraith. Its hood fell open. For one breath I saw a face inside the empty dark. A woman's face, thin and frightened. Then it was gone, and the hood hung empty again. But I had seen it. I whispered a name from the record book, and the wraith stopped moving. It knew its own name. I understood then. The wraiths were not guards. They were the stolen. Every faceless shape drifting through Sleepymire had once been a person the gaze had emptied. I turned the light toward the far wall. A twisted shape stood there, half wood, half body, branches growing from its shoulders. It did not move. The candle showed a face buried deep in the bark, mouth open, eyes shut. Some of the taken had not stayed wraiths at all. They had rooted into the ground and become almost-trees. I lowered the candle. My chest ached. "They're all still here," I said. "All of them, inside these shapes. The gaze didn't kill them. It hollowed them and left them to drift." You looked at me, waiting. "I wanted to free them," I said. "But look at them. The one turned to wood can't even speak. I don't know how to give a face back." I held the candle tight. "Now I know who they are. That's worse. Because now I can't pretend the gaze only took me. And I still don't know how to undo any of it."