the golden inscription

Noah stared into those golden eyes that gleamed in the darkness. A cold sensation crawled down his spine—not fear, but… a strange realization.

"You're late."

The voice was soft, calm, yet carried an ancient weight, as if it had existed since the beginning of time.

From the shadows, the creature emerged, moving gracefully on all fours… its body a fusion of feline and the unknown, its fur resembling a night sky lit with stars, shifting like an endless sea of darkness.

Noah didn't speak. He didn't need to.

"You're... different now."

Talia stood motionless beside him, as if frozen in place.

"Noctra..."

Noah spoke the name without thinking, as though it had been carved into the depths of his soul since eternity.

Noctra smiled—not a human smile, but an expression so enigmatic that words failed to define it.

"The world is changing. And so are you."

Her golden eyes shimmered in the dark, glowing like windows to another world. Her sleek, shadowed fur rippled with a slow, deliberate grace, defying the laws of gravity. Her tail swayed lazily, and with each step of her clawed paws, faint wisps of smoke curled into the air, matching the erratic rhythm of his heartbeat.

"I'm used to nightmares, but I'm not used to being woken up in the middle of the night by a philosophizing cat." He muttered, trying to regain his composure.

"I am not a cat." She stated coldly, gazing at him as if he were nothing more than an oblivious child. Then, in one fluid motion, she leaped from the window, landing before him with an effortless grace that made his human movements seem embarrassingly clumsy.

"Right… And you're definitely not a nuisance either."

"When the time comes, you'll understand."

She walked through the room in silent, calculated steps, her tail swaying. But Noah knew Noctra rarely moved without purpose.

Something was different tonight. This wasn't just a nightmare… it felt more like a memory. Yet he had no recollection of when it had happened or how he even knew it.

Suddenly, Noctra lifted her head, ears twitching as if catching a sound beyond his range of hearing.

Before he could sink further into his thoughts, another sound interrupted him—but this time, it wasn't inside his head.

Something was moving outside.

He glanced at the window, then at Noctra, who stared into the darkness, her eyes gleaming with an eerie intensity. He could feel it too—that unsettling sensation that told him someone was watching.

Noctra's non-human smile returned as she whispered, "It seems we'll have a visitor tonight. Turn off the lights, and don't make a sound."

Then…

A barely audible knock echoed against his window.

Cautiously, he approached and found a letter written in the same cryptic symbols as the book. Slowly, he unfolded it and read:

"You have seen too much... They are watching you."

A chill ran through him. Who were they? And why were they watching?

He turned on the lights—only to find that Noctra had vanished into the void.

And his sister, Talia, lay unconscious on the floor.