TWO

Sasha's heart was racing as she stared at the ominous message from the stranger. The words seemed to be seeping into her very being, causing a deep furrow to form between her eyebrows. She couldn't shake off the sense of foreboding that was settling in her gut.

As she typed out her response, her fingers shook with an inexplicable fear. "Why would you say that? They are nice people," she wrote back, trying her best to maintain her composure.

She wondered why this anonymous person had suddenly given her a warning out of the blue. Although it sounded like a scam, Sasha still felt uneasy.

The stranger's reply made Sasha even more confused and weirded out. "They are not, and you should really stop," the message read, sending shivers down Sasha's spine.

She wanted to argue back, demanding proof to substantiate the stranger's peculiar claims. But before she could hit send, she realized that the stranger had blocked her account, leaving her with an unshakable sense of unease and hundreds of questions of 'why'.

Despite the eerie encounter, Sasha was able to fall asleep quickly, but her dreams were plagued with terrifying visions of the Runians and their strange practices. In her dreams, she could see lots of shadowy figures dancing around a large bonfire, their eyes hollow and their movements jerky.

They did not seem to be able to see her, as if she was watching them in a third-person perspective. The figures were dressed in red robes with hood covering their face, but the flickering light from the fire illuminated their faces, allowing Sasha to catch a glimpse of their lifeless-looking eyes.

She stood not too far from the bonfire. Slowly, she took a few steps forward out of curiosity after realizing they could not see her. The Runians continue to dance wildly and begun to mutter something that sounded like an enchantment. Some of the people did not look like a human anymore, and instead they bore a resemblance of demonic beings,

The gibberish and whispers of enchantment sounded alien to her, but she somehow knew it was not a good one. While the Runians were chanting, one of them suddenly raised his head and tilted towards Sasha, his eyes was dull, and he looked cadaverous.

Sasha jolted awake from her sleep by the sudden surge of fear. Did one of them realized she was there, or were they pretending to not see her? Sasha placed her hand over her chest, her heart was beating so fast in panic.

She spent a while trying to steady her breathing, but eventually she managed to relax and fall asleep once more.

The next morning , Sasha tried to brush off the strange dream she had last night as she sat down for breakfast with her family. As she took a sip of her coffee, her mind wandered back to the religion she had discovered, and why strange thing seemed to happen after encountering it.

"Sasha, why are you spacing out?"

She turned her head towards her mother and say, "Oh, I'm sorry, I was just thinking about something".

"What is that something?"

"Uh, well, I was surfing through the Internet yesterday, and I stumbled upon this ancient belief called The Runia. It was pretty interesting, and I couldn't get it out of my mind."

Her mother stared at her for a while, "Okay, just don't do anything weird on the Internet."

"Of course, ma," She chuckled, "Don't worry".

As the day wore on, Sasha's curiosity got the better of her, and she started researching the Runians and their beliefs again. But the more she learned, the more uneasy she became. The images of their sacred objects and statues seemed to take on a sinister quality, as if they were watching her from the screen.

She could not help but get goosebumps and chills down to her spine from the Runians.

Out of nowhere, she stumbled upon a particularly creepy picture, one that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. The image depicted a shadowy figure with hollow eyes, staring directly at her, and the caption read, "If you dwell too much with them, they'll try to turn you into them."

It looks like the ones in her dream, but more like a demon!

Despite the warning, Sasha couldn't stop herself from delving deeper into the Runians' beliefs, her obsession with the strange religion growing stronger by the minute. But as she came across another image, one that promised power in exchange for control, a voice inside her head told her to stop. It was almost like a cry for help.

She immediately shut down her laptop in fear, but the feeling of dread lingered on. Her gut felt uneasy, as if there was something terrible bound to happen soon. Sasha left her room and did some house chores in an attempt to lose the discomfort.

As she lay in bed that night, she could not help but wonder what kind of darkness she had stumbled upon, and whether it was all only in her head. The fear had taken root in her mind, and she couldn't shake off the feeling that she was being watched by the Runians, their shadowy figures lurking just beyond her line of sight, blending in with the darkness of the night.