The Lanturn Appears

It was dusk, the hour when the forest’s breath grows shallow and lengthy. Lumen wandered farther than he ever had, to a place where the air tasted of old secrets.

The wind carried a thin metallic hum, almost like a memory.

He shifted his paws', dug them deep into the earth. Grounding his fears, buried them under the soil.

Luman thought of his mother's laugh and gathered enough courage to go on.

He saw something in front of him. A curious thing, glowing, illuminating the whispering plants around him.

A lantern hung from a crooked oak branch—except there had been no oak tree there a moment before. The branch was too smooth, too new, as though the forest had grown it in the time between fearful heartbeats and his mother's laugh.

The lantern was tiny, no larger than an acorn cap. Its frame looked woven from silver twigs. Inside, a thin flame trembled……no, not a flame. A soul-light, pale as bone and shaking as if it feared being seen.

Lumen’s fur bristled. “What are you?” he whispered.

The lantern answered by glowing brighter. He thought of the sunshine glistening on his mother’s fur, turning it into incandescent patches of reds and golds.

A darkness pierced his heart, too. Something else was here, beside good, happy things. Was a hurtful thing hiding behind this glowing light?

He really wanted to reach for it with his paw. Despite…

But he should have run. Every instinct screamed to flee. But curiosity pulled him forward like a thread around his heart. He reached out with one paw, the air buzzing beneath his fur, and touched the lantern.

A cold surge rushed through him.

The forest exhaled—sharp, like waking from a nightmare.

The earth trembled. Leaves shivered without wind. Roots twisted beneath the moss, uncoiling like serpents. Hollow trees cracked open their doors. A thousand unseen eyes blinked awake in every shadow.

And the lantern’s handle fused to his paw like a shackle.

Lumen yelped and tried to drop it. But the lantern would not let go.

“You carry it now.”

The voice came from behind him. Lumen spun, hackles rising.

A mouse stepped forward. Small, brown, unremarkable, except for her eyes. They were too old, too knowing, too deep for a creature with such fragile bones.

“My name is Pip,” she said. “And you have been chosen, fox.”

“I don’t want this.” Lumen tugged at the lantern. “Take it off.”

“I cannot.” Pip’s tone was sorrowful. “Once the lantern chooses, it binds. You felt it calling.”

“I didn’t,” Lumen snapped.

Pip’s whiskers twitched. “Then what made you touch what you feared?”

Lumen faltered. The forest around him shifted, listening.

He knew that she was right, but he bristled anyway.