Chapter 1: The Weight of Ticks and Tradition

The ticks moved like black pearls across Ethan's pale skin, their bloated bodies pulsing with stolen blood—his blood. He sat motionless on the edge of his bed, watching them migrate along his arms in perfect, unnatural formations, as if choreographed by some invisible conductor. The sight should have revolted him. Instead, it filled him with a cold certainty: tonight, he was going to die.

"Ethan, honey?" His mother's voice drifted through the thin walls, artificially bright. "The elders are here."

He didn't answer. The ticks were responding to something he couldn't hear, their antennae twitching in unison toward his bedroom door. For three days now, they'd been feeding on him, weakening him, preparing him. The official story was that it was an honor—that the parasites were purifying him for his role as the Selected. But Ethan remembered his sister Amelia's final weeks, how she'd grown pale and distant, how the ticks had covered her skin like living jewelry until the night she'd crossed the bridge to Glass Harbor.

She'd returned the next morning, radiant and "perfected," her eyes bright and empty. Three days later, she was dead in a car accident that made no sense—perfect weather, straight road, no other vehicles. The official cause was driver error, but Ethan had seen her drive a thousand times. Amelia never made errors.

A soft knock interrupted his thoughts. "Son?" His father's weathered face appeared in the doorway, lined with what might have been grief or relief. "It's time."

Ethan stood slowly, his movements deliberate despite the weakness coursing through his veins. The ticks shifted with him, maintaining their precise patterns. In the mirror across the room, his reflection looked like a stranger—gaunt, hollow-eyed, marked for something unspeakable.

The main room of their small house buzzed with nervous energy. Elder Morrison stood by the fireplace, his hands clasped behind his back, while Elder Crawford whispered with Ethan's mother near the kitchen. Both men wore the kind of reverent expression usually reserved for funerals. Which, Ethan supposed, this essentially was.

"Ethan." Elder Morrison's voice carried the weight of ceremony. "Tonight, you join the ranks of the perfected. Your sacrifice—" he paused, the word hanging in the air like smoke, "—your service to Glass Harbor will ensure our community's continued prosperity."

"Sacrifice." Ethan repeated the word flatly. "Interesting choice."

His mother shot him a warning look, but Elder Morrison simply smiled. "A slip of the tongue. Your journey, of course. Just as your dear sister Amelia took her journey."

"And look how well that turned out for her."

The silence that followed was suffocating. Elder Crawford stepped forward, his eyes hard. "Your sister was perfected, boy. She returned to us transformed, elevated. The accident was... unfortunate. But her contribution to our community was immeasurable."

"Her contribution." Ethan felt something cold and sharp settle in his chest. "You mean her death."

"Enough." Elder Morrison's voice cut through the tension. "The hour grows late, and the crossing must be made before midnight. Your grandfather waits at the bridge."

Ethan's pulse quickened. Grandfather Henrik had been avoiding him since the selection ceremony, his usual gruff affection replaced by something that looked suspiciously like guilt. If anyone in his family retained a shred of humanity, it would be the old man.

They walked through the festival in procession, Ethan flanked by the elders while his parents followed at a respectful distance. Camp Ehrlich had been transformed for the solstice celebration—lanterns strung between the trees, tables laden with food, children running between the adults with sparklers painting temporary fire in the darkness. It was beautiful, joyous, and utterly false.

The townspeople they passed fell silent, their faces shifting through carefully rehearsed expressions of pride, reverence, and what might have been hunger. Mrs. Patterson, who used to sneak him extra cookies from the general store, wouldn't meet his eyes. Coach Williams, who'd taught him to throw a curveball, nodded solemnly and turned away. Even the children seemed to understand the gravity of the moment, their games grinding to a halt as the procession passed.

"They love you, you know," Elder Morrison said quietly. "This is the highest honor our community can bestow."

"Funny way of showing love," Ethan replied, but his voice lacked its earlier edge. The weakness was getting worse, and the ticks were growing agitated, their movements becoming frenzied.

They reached the edge of the forest where Grandfather Henrik waited alone. The old man stood beside a simple wooden table, his weathered hands resting on something wrapped in dark cloth. When he saw Ethan approaching, his eyes filled with what looked like pain.

"Grandfather." Ethan's voice cracked slightly.

Henrik nodded, then unwrapped the object on the table. It was a bell—not metal, but something that looked almost organic, like hardened leather or dried flesh. Its surface was covered in intricate patterns that seemed to shift in the lamplight.

"This is the Bell of Calling," Elder Morrison announced to the gathered crowd. "With this, the Selected will announce his arrival to the guardians of Glass Harbor."

Henrik lifted the bell, and for a moment, Ethan thought he saw the old man's hands shake. Their eyes met, and Henrik's lips moved silently. Ethan leaned closer, straining to hear.

"The phone," Henrik whispered, so quietly the words were barely breath. "The knife. The compass. Remember what I taught you about the woods."

Understanding flashed between them. Henrik knew. Somehow, his grandfather knew this was a death sentence, and he'd been the one leaving supplies in Ethan's room—the burner phone hidden in his boot, the compass and knife tucked into his socks. The old man had been preparing him not for honor, but for survival.

"Take it." Henrik's voice was steady now, pitched for the crowd. "May it serve you well on your journey."

Ethan accepted the bell, and the moment it touched his skin, the ticks went wild. They swarmed across his arms, their movement so violent it felt like his flesh was boiling. The bell itself seemed to pulse with a life of its own, warm and slightly damp against his palm.

"The path to the bridge is marked," Elder Crawford announced. "Follow the white stones, and do not deviate. The crossing must be made alone."

The crowd began to disperse, families drifting back toward the festival lights, but Ethan remained frozen. This was it—the moment where he either walked toward his death like a lamb, or broke the charade and ran. But where could he run? The town was isolated, surrounded by hundreds of miles of wilderness, and every adult here was complicit in whatever was about to happen to him.

"Go on, son." His father's voice was gentle, almost kind. "Make us proud."

Ethan looked back one last time at the faces of his community—his family, his neighbors, people who'd known him since birth—and saw nothing but resignation and relief. They weren't sending him to honor; they were sending him to be consumed by something that had been feeding on their children for generations.

"I'll make you proud," he said quietly, and meant it in a way they would never understand.

The white stones glowed faintly in the darkness, leading him away from the lights and laughter, away from everything he'd ever known, and toward something that had taken his sister and transformed her into a hollow shell before discarding her like a broken toy.

Behind him, the festival music played on, but Ethan could hear something else now—a low, rhythmic sound that might have been his heartbeat, or the pulse of something vast and hungry waiting in the darkness ahead. The ticks had gone still again, but their silence was somehow worse than their frenzied movement.

He clutched the impossible bell tighter and stepped into the forest, following a path laid by generations of complicit adults toward a fate they all pretended was an honor. But Ethan was done pretending.

Whatever waited for him at the bridge, whatever lurked in the abandoned town of Glass Harbor, he would face it with his eyes open and his secrets hidden. The phone in his boot, the knife in his sock, the compass against his ankle—these were his real inheritance from a grandfather who'd loved him enough to arm him for war disguised as ritual.

The white stones stretched ahead like a trail of bones, and Ethan followed them into the hungry darkness, carrying the weight of his town's lies and his sister's memory toward whatever truth awaited him across the bridge.