Chapter 1: The Curse of June

The moon hung low over the city, swollen and silver, as if it were waiting. June leaned against the cold rail of her rooftop, her fingers curled tightly around the edge like she was afraid the sky might swallow her whole.

She hated this day.

Every year on June 18th—her birthday—something strange happened. A flicker in time. A voice that didn’t belong. A sense that the world slipped sideways, just for a second. It was never loud, never obvious. But it was there. Like a secret only she was meant to carry.

She was eighteen today. Legally an adult. Yet, more than ever, she felt like a child staring at a sky that refused to give her answers.

Her aunt Meera called out from inside. “June? You’re up there again?”

“I’ll come down in a bit!” she replied, not taking her eyes off the moon.

“You’ll catch a cold!”

The rooftop had always been her sanctuary. After her parents died when she was nine, she moved in with her aunt in the sleepy suburbs. Since then, the rooftop became the only place that felt real. And the moon? It had become something more than a celestial body. It was... a witness. A keeper of secrets.

The clock tower down the street chimed midnight. Her breath caught.

One... two... three...

She clenched her jaw. “Not again,” she whispered.

Eleven... twelve.

The twelfth chime faded into silence. But not ordinary silence—this one had weight. Even the breeze stilled. The street below, usually humming with occasional rickshaws and chatter, seemed to vanish. June’s heart pounded.

And then, she heard it.

A whisper.

Not outside her. Inside.

> “She remembers.”

Her knees buckled, and she dropped to the rooftop floor. Hands pressed to her ears as if to block it out, but the voice wasn’t in her ears—it was in her bones.

A flash struck her mind. A pair of pale eyes. A crimson thread. A girl crying beneath the same full moon.

She gasped, crawling backward until her back hit the rooftop wall. The vision vanished. The night resumed.

She blinked at the sky.

The moon, as still as ever, looked almost amused.

What just happened? Again?

Last year, she woke up with a deep scratch down her back, no explanation. The year before, she lost three hours of memory. Always on June 18th. Always under the full moon.

She stood up slowly, legs trembling, brushing dust off her pajama pants. The city below had resumed its normal rhythm. The breeze was back. A car honked in the distance.

June turned her gaze back to the moon. “What do you want from me?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

The moon didn’t answer.

But the air held something. A promise—or maybe a threat.

She stepped down from the rooftop, her body still trembling. Her aunt was waiting in the living room, flipping through a worn magazine.

“You okay?” Meera asked, not looking up.

June nodded. “Yeah. Just tired.”

“Had the dream again?”

“It wasn’t a dream.”

Meera finally looked up, frowning. “You know, if you keep talking like that, your friends will think you’re crazy.”

June offered a weak smile. “Good thing I don’t have many.”

She started for her room.

“Wait,” Meera said. “You got a letter.”

June stopped. “A letter?”

“No return address. Just your name.”

She took it from her aunt’s hand. The envelope was plain, but the paper inside was thick, textured. Handwritten.

> “Some things are better left forgotten, June. But not this. Come to Maple Town. It begins where it once ended.”

No signature.

Her blood ran cold.

Maple Town.

She hadn’t heard that name in almost nine years.

It was where her parents died.

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