The night was unusually silent when Elara stepped off the old ferry that brought her to Raven’s Hollow Island. The mist hung low, curling like ghostly fingers around her ankles. Her camera swung gently from her neck — she was here to document the island’s forgotten ruins, not to fall in love, and certainly not to awaken anything dead.
But destiny, as always, had other plans.
The island was small — cliffs on one side, a forest thick with black pines on the other. At its heart stood a crumbling stone mansion, rumored to be cursed. Local fishermen told her that no one who entered ever returned. Yet Elara felt drawn to it, as if the wind itself whispered her name through the trees.
She reached the gate by dusk. It screeched open with a reluctant groan. The air smelled of rain, salt, and something ancient. She raised her flashlight, its beam landing on a name carved above the doorway:
“The House of Lysander.”
The moment she stepped inside, thunder rolled — and that’s when she saw him.
A man stood in the hall, tall and strangely luminous, dressed in tattered 19th-century clothes. His eyes were the color of storm clouds.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said softly.
Elara froze. “I— I didn’t mean to trespass. I’m a photographer—”
He tilted his head. “A photographer,” he murmured. “How curious. No one has come here for decades.”
Lightning flashed, and for a heartbeat, she saw through him — literally through him.
Her breath caught. “You’re not real.”
He smiled faintly. “Not anymore.”
That night, Elara stayed in the mansion, unable to leave — the storm was too strong. Lysander, the ghost, appeared at the edge of her candlelight every now and then. He told her fragments of his story: he had once been the heir to the island, a sailor and poet who fell in love with a woman named Seraphine.
But Seraphine betrayed him. She had made a pact with something dark beneath the sea to gain immortality. When he found out, she drowned him beneath the crimson moon. His spirit had been trapped ever since — between love and vengeance.
Elara listened, half-terrified, half-mesmerized. There was sorrow in his voice that made her chest ache.
When midnight came, she whispered, “I’ll help you.”
Lysander’s eyes widened. “You cannot. The curse binds my soul to the moon’s cycle. Every crimson moon, she rises from the sea to claim another heart.”
Elara shivered. “Then she’ll come for you tonight?”
“No,” he said, voice breaking. “She’ll come for you.”
The wind howled as if warning them. Waves crashed violently beyond the cliffs. The entire island seemed alive — whispering, trembling. Elara ran to the window and gasped. The sea had turned red.
Something was rising from it.
Seraphine.
Her long black hair floated around her like a living shadow, and her eyes burned with a sickly golden light. Her beauty was inhuman — perfect and terrible.
“Lysander,” she sang, her voice echoing across the night. “You promised me eternity.”
Lysander stepped forward, his ghostly form flickering. “You took my life, Seraphine. I owe you nothing.”
Seraphine’s gaze shifted to Elara. “And yet, you’ve found another mortal to love you?”
Elara’s heart pounded. “I don’t love him—” she began, but Lysander turned to her, his voice trembling.
“Don’t lie to yourself.”
She froze. The way he looked at her — like she was the first sunrise he’d seen in centuries — made her knees weaken.
Seraphine screamed, and the mansion shook. The walls cracked, paintings burst into flames, and the air turned cold enough to freeze breath.
Elara grabbed Lysander’s hand instinctively — and gasped when she felt it. For the first time, his hand was solid, warm.
He looked at her in shock. “You’ve broken the boundary.”
“What boundary?” she cried.
“The one between life and death.”
Seraphine lunged, her claws like shards of ice. Lysander pulled Elara into the grand hall, the world spinning around them. The house groaned as if alive, doors slamming, glass shattering.
“Elara,” he whispered urgently, “there’s only one way to end this — you must destroy the locket buried beneath the moon altar.”
“Where?”
“In the crypt — beneath the cliffs.”
Elara didn’t hesitate. They ran through storm and darkness, the waves roaring beneath them. She could hear Seraphine behind them, her laughter like breaking glass.
At the edge of the cliffs stood an old stone altar glowing red under the moonlight. Elara fell to her knees, digging through the wet earth with trembling hands. She uncovered a rusted silver locket shaped like a heart.
Seraphine’s scream tore through the sky. “If you destroy it, his soul dies too!”
Elara looked up, horrified. Lysander met her gaze, his expression gentle, almost peaceful.
“She’s telling the truth,” he said. “My spirit is tied to it. But if you don’t destroy it, she’ll take your soul next.”
Elara’s heart broke. “There has to be another way!”
“There isn’t.”
Rain mixed with her tears. “Then tell me you love me — before I do it.”
Lysander stepped closer, brushing a hand through her hair. “I loved you the moment you walked through those gates. You brought me light again.”
She sobbed, clutching the locket. “Then forgive me.”
And she smashed it against the stone.
A blinding crimson light burst from the altar. Seraphine shrieked, dissolving into mist, her voice fading into the sea. Lysander fell to his knees, his body turning translucent.
“Elara…” he whispered.
“Don’t go.”
He smiled faintly. “You freed me.”
Then he was gone.
The storm ended by dawn. The island was silent again. Elara stood alone on the cliffs, the broken locket in her palm. The sea shimmered, peaceful now — as if nothing had ever happened.
When she finally boarded the ferry back to the mainland, she turned for one last look at Raven’s Hollow.
And there, on the shore, she saw him — Lysander, watching her.
He raised his hand in farewell as the morning light washed over him. For a moment, she thought she heard his voice in the wind:
“Where the crimson moon rises, love never dies.”
A tear rolled down her cheek. The camera around her neck flickered — and on its screen, she found a single photo she hadn’t taken:
A picture of her and Lysander, standing together under the red moon.