The Road to Schreckenstein

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Castle The rain had long since stopped, but the sky was still gray from all the stories he'd told during the night. Julian trudged through the wet grass with his duffel bag, the cat in its old wicker basket in his arms. The path was hardly a path at all; more like a strip of earth forgotten between brambles, winding through a mossy forest. The map in Julian's coat pocket had only one sentence: "The path reveals itself when you are ready to walk it." And there it was—bumpy, mysterious, surrounded by wisps of fog. The cat was asleep. Or at least pretended to be. Sometimes it opened one eye, as if checking whether Julian was still brave. "I don't know what we're doing here," he murmured softly, "but I think it's important." He remembered the old railway track without a station, the clock that had ticked backward, and the man with the lantern who had shown him the way without a word. Nothing here was the same as before. Or perhaps this was the before—a time that had waited just for him. The trees were growing older, their bark cracked like the pages of a storybook. Birds sang songs that sounded like warnings. Then, around a bend, there it was: Schreckenstein Castle. Not a castle whispering a welcome. Not a place for postcard motifs. It sat perched on a rock, somber and proud, with turrets stuck in time. A crack rippled through the sky directly above, as if even the weather were receding in awe. Julian inhaled the air—it tasted of old keys and sealed letters. The entrance to the castle was not an open gate, but a bridge of rotten wood spanning a ravine where fog boiled like forgotten dreams. Julian hesitated. The basket in his hand stirred. "Yes, I know. Go on." The bridge creaked under his weight, but it held. Halfway across, he heard voices—whispering, as if spoken through walls. Old names. Perhaps his too. When he reached the other side, a figure stood in the shadow of the entrance: a boy, barely older than him, wearing a disheveled coat and carrying a notebook under his arm. "You're late," said the stranger. "I didn't know I was expected." The boy shrugged. "Everyone is expected here. Someday." Without another word, he turned and walked into the courtyard. Julian followed him, the wind playing with the pages of the notebook like the pages of a novel writing itself. The gate closed behind him with a sound that came not from hinges, but from something deeper. Something that had awakened. There was no sound in the courtyard. Only the fountain in the center whispered softly, as if trying to remember Julian. Welcome home, something inside him said. The cat had known full well that this was now its territory. Julian looked up at the tower, rising above everything else. He wasn't there yet. There were still paths to be traveled. Doors that could be opened not with keys, but with memories. He had arrived. And yet, everything had only just begun.