Chapter 4: The Skeptic and the Sigil

Chapter 4: The Skeptic and the Sigil

The first aid kit on the dusty floor of her room felt like a profound insult. Elle fumbled with a roll of gauze, her hands trembling so badly she could barely wrap it around the three weeping gashes on her forearm. The blood had soaked through her jacket sleeve, a dark, undeniable stain of reality.

“What in God’s name happened to you?”

Liam’s voice, sharp and laced with a director’s impatience, cut through the quiet room. He stood in the doorway, holding two cups of coffee, his face a mask of shock and annoyance. His eyes weren't on her face; they were fixed on the bloody wound.

“We have a shoot in thirty minutes, Elle. We can’t have the lead’s arms looking like she fought a feral cat. What happened?”

This was her chance. Her desire to make him see, to make him believe, swelled in her chest, overriding her fear. “It wasn't a cat, Liam. It was in the dream. The nightmare. It was real.” She held up her arm, the raw, angry cuts a testament to her words. “This happened while I was asleep.”

Liam placed the coffees on the floor and stepped inside, his pragmatic mind already searching for a logical explanation. He took her arm, his touch surprisingly gentle, but his examination was clinical. “A dream? Elle, be serious.”

“I am being serious!” Her voice cracked with desperation. “Last night, in the dream, I was in the asylum grounds. There was this… this thing. A hound made of shadows. It chased me. The timer ran out, and it attacked me right before I woke up. Liam, this is where it clawed me.”

The obstacle was the wall of skepticism in his eyes. It was a look she knew well, the same one he got when a crew member gave him a flimsy excuse for a technical failure. He saw a problem to be solved, not a truth to be accepted.

“Listen to yourself,” he said softly, his voice a careful blend of concern and exasperation. “You’re exhausted. We’re all on edge in this place. You had a violent nightmare, probably from the stress. You scratched yourself. Maybe on a nail in that old bed frame, maybe your own fingernails. It happens. It’s called a parasomniac injury.”

“A what? No!” she cried, pulling her arm back. “Don’t you dare try to pathologize this! What about Ben? He was screaming about whispers and hungry shadows, just like my first dream. That’s not a coincidence!”

“Ben had a seizure,” Liam countered, his voice firming. “The paramedics said so. Stress, dehydration, maybe he’s epileptic. That’s a medical issue, not… not a monster hunt.”

The argument was a chasm opening between them. Every rational explanation he offered was a shovelful of dirt, burying her deeper in her isolation. He saw an overwrought actress cracking under pressure; she saw a man refusing to acknowledge the abyss that had opened at their feet.

“So you don’t believe me,” she stated, the words flat and hollow.

“I believe you’re terrified,” he conceded, his shoulders slumping. “I believe you’re pushing yourself too hard. But I can’t believe in dream monsters, Elle. I just… can’t. Clean that up and cover it with a fresh sleeve. We’ll shoot around it. I need you on set.”

He turned and left, leaving one of the coffee cups on the floor. The gesture, meant to be kind, felt like a final, dismissive pat on the head. He didn't believe. He couldn't help her. The result of her desperate plea was total failure. She was on her own.

A new, cold resolve settled over her. If Liam couldn't help her, she would have to find answers herself. She cleaned and bandaged the wound properly, her movements now steady and precise. She slipped her laptop out of her duffel bag, the hum of the old machine a comforting sound in the oppressive silence. She didn't know what she was looking for, but she had to try something.

Her initial web searches were fruitless. “Elkwood Asylum ghost stories” yielded dozens of cheesy paranormal investigation videos. “Nightmares that cause physical wounds” led her down a rabbit hole of medical forums discussing extreme cases of self-harm during sleep. None of it felt right.

Then she focused on the one concrete piece of evidence she had besides the scar: the sigil. It was still there, a faint, silver-blue shimmer beneath her skin. She quickly sketched the stylized sleeping eye on a piece of paper from her script. She searched for “glowing skin symbols,” “ancient eye markings,” and a dozen other variations.

Finally, a strange result popped up. It was a link to a small, poorly designed blog called “Whispers of the Valley,” run by a man named Arthur Pendelton, a local historian and self-proclaimed folklorist. One post, titled “The Wardens of Elkwood,” caught her eye.

Her heart began to pound as she read. Pendelton wrote of local legends, dismissed by mainstream historians, about the asylum’s true purpose. He claimed it wasn't built for the mentally ill, but to contain a "somnolent entity," a "weaver of nightmares." He wrote that the asylum's founders were a secret society, and that its most important staff weren't doctors, but "wardens" tasked with keeping the entity dormant. The post ended with a hand-drawn sketch, a recreation of a symbol found on an old cornerstone.

It was the sleeping eye. Her sigil.

Her hands shook as she found his contact number. She called, half-expecting no one to answer. An elderly, reedy voice picked up on the third ring.

“Pendelton.”

“Mr. Pendelton? My name is Elara Vance. I read your blog post… about the Wardens of Elkwood.” She took a breath. “I need to talk to you. I think… I think I have the mark you described.”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line, filled only with the faint crackle of the connection. “Where are you, child?” he finally asked, his voice suddenly devoid of its earlier quaver, replaced by a deep, unsettling gravity.

An hour later, Elle was standing in Arthur Pendelton’s cluttered study, a small, book-lined room behind a sleepy antique shop in the nearby town. The air smelled of old paper, lemon polish, and something vaguely like cinnamon. Arthur was a small, frail man in a tweed jacket, with wispy white hair and eyes that seemed to hold a century of weary knowledge.

“Let me see,” he said, his voice gentle.

Wordlessly, Elle pushed up her sleeve, revealing first the crude bandage, then her wrist. She held it out.

Arthur leaned in close, his breath fogging the small magnifying glass he held. He didn't gasp or express shock. He simply nodded, a profound sadness in his expression.

“The Warden’s Eye,” he breathed, his voice a mournful whisper. “It’s fainter than the old texts described, but unmistakable. I had hoped I would never see one awaken.”

“What is it?” Elle asked, her voice trembling. “What’s happening to me?”

“You are a Dreamwalker,” he said, looking up from her wrist to meet her eyes. “A descendant of the original wardens. A bloodline that has grown thin over the centuries, but it seems not thin enough. That mark means you have the latent ability to enter the Dreamscape with your conscious mind—and fight what lives there.”

“The Dreamscape?” she repeated, the word from the System interface making her blood run cold.

“It is the world of dreams, a dimension that borders our own, shaped by thought and emotion. And deep beneath Elkwood, something from that place lies sleeping. A prisoner.” He shuffled over to a large, leather-bound book on a lectern and opened it to a page with a terrifying, abstract drawing of swirling shadows and malevolent eyes.

“We have many names for it. The locals called it the Somnus Fiend. The old texts call it the Nightmare Weaver.”

The name struck Elle with the force of a physical blow. The Weaver.

“It feeds on psychic energy,” Arthur continued, his voice low and urgent. “Fear, hope, passion, creativity. For a century, it has been starved, dormant. But now…” He gestured vaguely in the direction of the asylum. “A film production. Dozens of passionate, creative minds, all gathered in one place, focused on a story of fear and madness. You haven't just stumbled upon its prison, my dear girl.”

He turned to face her, his weary eyes filled with a terrifying certainty. “You have set up a gourmet banquet right on its doorstep. You are ringing the dinner bell, and the Weaver is starting to wake up.”