Solstice Pact

The summer solstice had always been a time for celebration in Oak Hollow. Bonfires burned high, music filled the air, and the longest day of the year felt endless in the best way possible. This year, however, it would truly never end.

It started as a joke.

Ethan, Mara, Dylan, and Tessa had been hiking near the old ruins at the edge of town, a forgotten temple crumbling beneath creeping vines. The place had always been rumored to hold strange energy, whispers of an ancient civilization that once worshipped the sun.

Mara, always the bold one, found the inscription first.

“O Solaire, keeper of the endless day, grant us your light eternal.”

Ethan laughed. “Let’s summon the sun.”

Dylan smirked. “Yeah, because ancient cults are totally real.”

Tessa hesitated. Something about the words, the symbols carved into the stone, unsettled her. But Mara was already chanting, her voice lilting and mocking, her hands raised toward the sky.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then, the sun flared unnaturally bright.

By the time they made it back to town, something was wrong.

The sun refused to set.

At first, people shrugged it off. A weird weather event, some kind of anomaly, they said. But as midnight approached and the sky remained a searing blue, fear settled over Oak Hollow. Phones stopped working. The clocks froze. Shadows stretched impossibly long, twisting in ways that defied logic.

And then came the figures.

They emerged from the tree line—robed figures with golden masks shaped like the sun. They moved in perfect synchronicity, whispering in a dead language, their hands reaching, searching.

“The Chosen,” one of them murmured, eyes settling on Mara. “The Solstice Pact has been renewed.”

They ran, but the town was no longer their own.

People had changed. Their neighbors, teachers, even family members had fallen into the cult’s thrall, faces eerily serene as they murmured praises to the eternal sun. The town square had been transformed—a towering pyre stood in the center, burning without consuming, waiting for its sacrifice.

Tessa gasped as she saw her own mother among the followers, her eyes vacant, lips parted in an endless chant.

“You must complete the ritual,” the masked leader intoned. “Or the day will never end.”

Ethan clenched his fists. “Then how do we stop it?”

The leader’s golden mask tilted. “Blood must pay for blood.”

All eyes turned to Mara.

Mara’s breath came in shallow gasps. “No way. I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

“They think you did,” Dylan whispered. “They won’t stop.”

The sun blazed hotter, the air thick with the scent of burning wood and something else—something ancient and unclean. The shadows around them writhed, growing hands, mouths, eyes.

Tessa grabbed Mara’s arm. “There has to be another way.”

And then she saw it—the same inscription, carved into the center of the pyre. The words she had been too afraid to read before.

To end the day, one must walk the night.

Dylan’s voice wavered. “What does that mean?”

“I think it means someone has to go beyond the sun’s reach.”

Mara’s expression hardened. “Then I’ll do it.”

She stepped forward before anyone could stop her, before the cult could seize her. She spoke the words again, this time with purpose.

The sun flickered.

And then, finally, darkness fell.

When they awoke, they were alone. The cult, the pyre, the whispers—all gone. The town was quiet, the sky finally a deep, star-speckled black.

But Mara was nowhere to be found.

Only a single golden mask remained, half-buried in the ashes of the extinguished fire.

As the first rays of morning light stretched over Oak Hollow, Tessa felt a warmth on her skin that sent chills down her spine.

Somewhere, the sun was still watching.

And it was waiting.