The Shape of Rust: Chapter 1
Chapter 1: The Windmillʼs Shadow
“This is a multi-part story, with new chapters released every two weeks. Follow along to uncover the mystery as it unfolds.”
Make sure to read the Prologue.
The hum of progress hung in the air like a promise. In the 1920s, Kayro wasn’t just another forgotten speck on the map — it was alive, a pulse of innovation in the countryside. The electric plant stood proud at the town’s edge, up on the hill, its tin roof gleaming beneath the midday sun, chimneys puffing plumes of coal smoke into the open sky.
The building was unassuming, a squat rectangle surrounded by neatly stacked piles of coal. Inside, machines hummed and clanked, their rhythmic churn sending vibrations through the earth. Wires stretched out like veins, pumping energy to every corner of our small Kayro. The plant wasn’t grand, but it was ours.
Back then, it seemed like nothing could dim Kayro’s light. People gathered at the plant’s opening ceremony, their eyes shining with hope as the first streetlamp flickered to life. The future felt bright, and for a while, it was.
But progress has a way of outpacing the places it touches. The hum of the plant grew quieter as the years wore on, swallowed by rust and neglect. Kayro faded with it, shrinking back into the shadows from which it had briefly emerged.
Now, in the present, Kayro is the kind of town you don’t stumble upon unless by accident. Gravel roads snake through lush green hills in the summer, only to transform into mud traps when the rains come. There’s no highway sign pointing the way, no attractions luring tourists. The only landmark — if you could call it that — is the windmill perched atop the hill, its rusted broken blades silhouetted against the sky.
People avoid the windmill. They don’t know why, and no one has ever pressed for answers. That’s how its works: the question go unasked, and the mystery stays that way.
I’ve lived here my whole life. Lost my folks young, grew up under my grandmother’s sharp gaze. She ran Suzie’s Diner with the efficiency of a sergeant, and when I was old enough to hold a spatula, I joined her. The diner feels like Kayro’s heartbeat, a place where the same faces gather day after day, sipping coffee and sharing stories that never stray far from the familiar.
Kayro is small, too small for secrets, yet somehow it clings to them. The biggest one stands on the hill, forgotten but ever-present. The windmill.
At the diner, some whispers about the windmill float in the air like steam from the coffee pots. They surface most often late at night, when the regulars gather at Joe’s Bar and the whiskey loosens their tongues.
“Remember that kid?” someone might say, their voice low. “The one who got too close to the windmill and never came back?”
It’s always the same story. A child, a dare, a disappearance. No one can name the kid or the year it happened, but the story persists, its edges worn smooth by repetition.
Most young folks dismiss it as a ghost tale, a warning passed down to keep children from wandering too far. I used to think so, too.
Until the night Sam died.
It started like any other night at the diner. I was wiping down the counter, the smell of fried onions lingering in the air, when the bell above the door jingled. Mikey, Sam, and Sally strolled in, a trio of restless teenagers looking for something to break the monotony of a Kayro’s summer.
They ordered milkshakes and fries, laughing too loudly as they slid into a booth by the window. I kept an eye on them, recognizing the glint in their eyes. It was the same look I’d had at their age — a hunger for trouble, for anything that might stir the stagnant air of small-town life.
As I closed up for the night, I saw them laughing without a care in the world, heading up to the hill. I hesitated, hand on the door, wanting to call out and stop them. I don’t know why I wanted to do it. But something held me back. Maybe it was the weight of the stories, or maybe it was just the knowledge that teenagers don’t listen to warnings.
So I let them go.
The scream came hours later, slicing through the stillness of the night. It wasn’t the sound of a prank gone wrong or a simple cry for help — it was raw, primal, the kind of sound that lodges itself in your chest and stays there.
My feet were moving before my brain caught up. I was walking home so I just ran towards the hill. I don’t remember why I knew that’s where the sound came from. The mud clung to my boots, the air thick with the scent of damp earth and decay.
When I reached the windmill, the scene stopped me cold. Mikey and Sally stood frozen, their faces pale, their eyes wide and glassy. Between them lay Sam, her body twisted at unnatural angles, her limbs like broken branches. Her eyes were open, but they didn’t see.
Behind them, The windmill’s blades turned with a low, eerie creak that seemed to echo through the stillness, a sound both mournful and unnatural. Each rotation was deliberate, as if the rusted machinery was dragging itself to life against its will.
The noise carried on the wind, a rhythmic groan that resonated in the chest like a distant cry. It wasn’t the soothing creak of old wood swaying in a breeze, but something sharper, more discordant, as though the very act of movement defied the laws of time and decay. It sounded alive, and worse — aware.
The windmill, silent for decades, was spinning. The rusted blades groaned and screeched, cutting through the air in slow, deliberate arcs. There was no wind, no storm to power them.
It felt alive. Watching. Waiting.
By morning, the town was buzzing with questions and theories, each one more outlandish than the last. Some blamed a freak accident. Others whispered about the windmill’s curse.
No one blamed the kids.
I found myself back at Suzie’s, serving coffee to the same faces as always, but the usual hum of conversation was subdued. The diner felt heavy, weighed down by the events of the night before.
I wanted answers, but no one seemed to have them. All I had were the stories, the whispers that floated through Kayro like a cold wind.
They say the windmill was built by a man who lost his family in a fire. He never finished the structure, leaving it as a skeleton of what it was meant to be. Some claim he cursed it, binding his grief and anger to its bones. Others say the windmill was used for rituals, strange gatherings that left scorch marks on the ground and echoes in the air.
None of it made sense, but then again, neither did the spinning blades or the scream that still rang in my ears.
As night fell, I found myself back on the hill, staring up at the windmill. The air was thick, the kind of oppressive silence that makes your skin prickle.
I told myself it was just a building, just wood and metal and rust. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was more than that.
The windmill didn’t just stand on the hill. It loomed, casting a shadow over Kayro that felt larger than the town itself.
The wind picked up, carrying a soft rustling through the leaves that felt like whispers trailing through the dark. My gaze fixed on the windmill, and for a moment, it seemed like the structure itself was shifting — its jagged, broken silhouette alive in the faint, flickering light. The blades, rusted and jagged, turned with an agonizing slowness, creaking like old bones being forced into motion. The wooden beams of the tower stretched upward, covered in streaks of moss and grime that oozed down like tears frozen in time. Its frame, half-rotten and splintered, seemed to lean unnaturally, as though pulled through space to fill it.
Every line and angle of the windmill felt wrong, its symmetry too exact, its shadows too deliberate. The structure mirrored itself in ways that defied logic, the curves and cracks of its wood repeating perfectly as though it were reflected in some invisible, fractured mirror. The faint glow at its center drew the eye — a dim, unnatural light that pulsed like a weak heartbeat, casting eerie patterns across the ground.
The textures of the windmill were vivid: the sharp grit of rust on the metal blades, the slick sheen of damp moss climbing the beams, the splinters jutting from the warped wood. The air around it seemed to hum, alive with an oppressive energy that pressed against my chest. The windmill wasn’t just standing; it was watching, waiting, its presence heavy and suffocating, as though it had been waiting for this moment to come alive.
They say you don’t go near the windmill. Not alone, and certainly not at night.
Because once it takes something, it doesn’t give it back.
“The streets of Kayro simmered with unease, whispers feeding a tension too heavy to hold. The windmill’s shadow stretched further now, thick and suffocating.”
‘It wasn’t an accident,’ she said, her voice cold. ‘The windmill… it took her.’
The next chapter will be released in two weeks. Stay tuned to uncover the secrets of Kayro.
