The Inscription

Chapter One

The house had grown too quiet.

No footsteps crossed the wooden floor. No voices moved between rooms. No doors opened, no chairs scraped, no pans rang from the kitchen. Afternoon light lay thin across the walls, pale and unmoving, and the curtains stirred only when the wind pressed softly against the glass.

Mira sat on the floor, turning a copper button between her fingers.

She liked quiet when it belonged to the house.

This silence lingered too long. It gathered in corners, held in the doorway, brushed faintly against her skin in a way she could not name. It felt as though the house itself had paused, waiting.

Mira lifted her head.

Her mother had left not long ago. Or perhaps much longer. Time moved strangely when no one was there to measure it. She had been told to stay where she was, and she had obeyed for as long as she could.

Then the light near the window changed.

It didn’t dim.

It drew closer.

As if the glass had thinned, and something beyond it had leaned nearer.

Mira rose to her feet.

At first, she thought it was a bird.

A pale shape moved across the window, too steady for wings, too slow for anything that lived on the ground. It drifted instead, upright, trailing white behind it like fabric submerged in water.

Mira took a step forward.

The figure stopped.

It remained framed by the window, as motionless as a painting. A woman, thin, suspended. Long grey hair stirred around her face, though the rest of her seemed untouched by the wind.

Then she looked directly at Mira.

The button slipped from Mira’s hand and struck the floor.

The woman smiled.

Not kindly, and not cruelly either. The expression settled too easily across her face, too calm to belong to cruelty, too pleased to belong to anything gentle. It spread with the ease of recognition, as though she had arrived at the right house and found the right child waiting for her.

Mira should have been afraid.

Later, she would understand that much.

But children do not turn away from wonder the first time it finds them.

She stepped closer.

Then closer still.

Her bare feet slipped slightly against the polished wood. She steadied herself on the chair, then climbed onto the bench beneath the window, clumsy with urgency. Her breath quickened, her heartbeat pressing hard against her ribs.

Outside, the woman drifted nearer.

Now Mira could see her—the narrow face, the long fingers, the white of her dress. Not the warm white of linen or bone, but something paler, something that did not seem to belong to light at all.

Mira raised her hands.

The woman did the same.

For a moment, they mirrored each other perfectly.

Then the glass caught the light between them.

Clear.

Cold.

Closed.

Mira frowned.

She pressed her palms against it. The glass stayed cold and unyielding. The chill seeped into her skin, spreading through her fingers and up her wrists.

The woman did not move.

The smile did not falter.

Mira pushed harder.

She was right there, just beyond the pane, close enough that Mira could trace the fine lines of her face, the stillness that did not belong to anything living.

Why couldn’t she reach her?

A sound formed in Mira’s throat, small and unfinished, catching before it could become anything more.

Outside, the woman’s gaze sharpened.

Mira struck the glass.

The window did not yield.

Heat moved through her arms.

She froze.

It wasn’t sunlight, nor the quiet warmth of blankets or hands. This came fast and bright, rising beneath her skin and pressing against her ribs as if it needed a way out.

Mira opened her mouth.

The sound came with it—raw, unshaped, not yet something she could control.

But the house did not remain still.

The glass trembled.

A sharp crack split the air. The curtain snapped upward. The oil lamp by the doorway burst, scattering sparks that caught too quickly, too easily. Flames ran along the edge of the tablecloth, then the rug, then the dry wood stacked by the wall.

It spread as if it had been waiting in the walls.

Mira stared as the light surged around her—alive, consuming, impossible to contain. Heat struck her face, forcing tears into her eyes. The bench beneath her knees began to smoke. She slipped and fell hard against the floor.

Through the rising flames, the woman stood perfectly still, watching.

And then she laughed.

The sound did not pass through the glass. It settled instead beneath Mira’s skin, in her teeth, in her throat, as though it had always been waiting there.

“Mira!”

Her father’s voice—distant at first, then closer.

Her mother’s voice broke through next, sharp, panicked, already unraveling.

The door burst open.

Shapes moved through smoke and fire. Hands reached. Someone shouted. Wood cracked. Glass shattered somewhere deeper in the house.

Mira tried to stand.

Heat pressed in from all sides. The air thickened, heavy in her lungs. Each breath burned.

Her father reached her first.

His face was already darkened with soot, his eyes wide—not with anger.

With fear.

Behind him, her mother screamed her name.

Hands pulled her up.

The room lurched.

The woman was gone.

The window held only firelight, and the broken shape of the garden beyond.

Mira opened her mouth again.

No sound came.

The world narrowed.

Heat. Noise. Light—

then darkness.

---

It would take years for anyone to agree on what had happened in that house.

Some would call it an accident. A broken lamp. A stray spark. Dry wood and poor timing.

Others would speak more carefully.

Of a child left alone too long. Of a figure seen at the window. Of a silence that had not been empty at all.

Within the Quiet Order, the incident would be recorded, then sealed.

Not as a failure.

Not as a tragedy.

But as the moment something crossed into the world, and refused to leave quietly.

---

This is the first chapter of my novel The Inscription (Lyrical Dark Fantasy). It will be serialized weekly and will be available for paid subscribers (coming very soon).

The Inscription is a small wounds side quest, for those who want to read more of my words and have a deeper dive into my imagination.

The first few chapters will be available for everyone to enjoy.

If you’d like to support me and all my adventures, please consider becoming a paid subscriber in the near future. I have a burning desire to create, and a dream to make a living from it.

And of course, my poetry will remain free—for whoever needs it.

With love, Kasu