The Shape of Rust: Prologue
Prologue: The Last Shadow
“This is a multi-part story, with new chapters released every two weeks. Follow along to uncover the mystery as it unfolds.”
It’s been a year since the windmill collapsed. I thought the time would give me clarity, that distance from that cursed hill might make sense of what happened, or at least dull the edge of its memory. But Kayro doesn’t work that way. The shadows here are sticky, clinging to everything they touch, spreading in ways you don’t notice until it’s too late.
The town feels different now. Quieter. Not in the way small towns are supposed to be, with their sleepy streets and predictable routines, but quieter like the aftermath of a storm. Like the air is waiting for something else to happen.
A few families packed up and left not long after the windmill fell. Couldn’t blame them. Whatever uneasy balance we had in Kayro was shattered that night, and some folks decided not to stick around to see how the pieces would land. Others stayed, either out of stubbornness or denial, pretending nothing had changed. But it had. You could see it in the way people walked a little faster past the hill, their heads down, as though refusing to meet the gaze of something unseen.
And then there were the marks.
The first one showed up about two months after it happened. I was opening Suzie’s one morning when I noticed it — a bisected circle, carved neatly into the wooden frame of the front door. It stopped me cold. It wasn’t deep, just enough to be noticeable if you looked, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that it hadn’t been there the day before.
Over the next few weeks, more appeared. Fences. Barns. The side of the laundromat. Each time, the same symbol, etched in the same deliberate hand. At first, I thought it was some cruel joke, maybe kids with nothing better to do. But the placements were too specific, too… purposeful. And no one ever saw who did it.
The hill itself isn’t much to look at now. The earth where the windmill stood has started to heal — or at least it looks like it. Sparse patches of grass poke through the rocky ground, and the scorch marks from the fire are fading. But if you stand there long enough, the silence starts to press on you, heavy and unnatural. The ground feels soft underfoot, as though something beneath it has been disturbed but not settled.
It was Ben who helped me see the bigger picture, though he didn’t stick around long enough to explain it all.
Ben Hanlon’s blog post, Kayro’s Windmill: Shadows in the Heartland, went live three months after the windmill collapsed. He’d been working on it for weeks, digging through what little history remained of this place, trying to stitch together the fragments into something coherent.
The article was thorough, as you’d expect from Ben, but it didn’t offer the comfort of answers. Instead, it laid out the contradictions, the gaps in the story that refused to close. The windmill’s construction, for example — conflicting records dated it to three different decades. The disappearances tied to the hill, stretching back further than anyone alive could remember, with no discernible pattern except the symbol that kept showing up in old photos and scattered records.
Ben was good at finding connections where others saw chaos, but even he admitted that some pieces didn’t fit. And then, six weeks after the post went live, he disappeared.
I remember the last thing he said to me. He’d been at the diner late, nursing a cup of coffee, his notebook spread open on the counter. “The heart still beats,” he muttered, more to himself than to me. When I asked what he meant, he just shook his head and scribbled something in his notes.
The next morning, he was gone.
He left behind his laptop, his notes, and a half-packed bag, like he’d meant to come back but never did. I went through his things once, hoping to find some clue about where he’d gone. What I found instead was a sketch of the windmill, its blades jagged and broken, with the symbol scrawled in the margins.
I went back to the hill a few nights ago. I hadn’t been there in months, not since Ben disappeared. It looked almost peaceful under the full moon, the kind of calm that makes you question your own memories. But as I walked closer, the unease crept back in, familiar and unwelcome.
The stones around the base of the hill still bore the marks — etched symbols that hadn’t faded with time. They seemed to glow faintly in the moonlight, or maybe it was just my eyes playing tricks on me. I crouched down to touch one, running my fingers over the grooves. It felt warm, like the stone itself was alive.
I stood there for what felt like hours, staring out at the town below. From that vantage point, Kayro looked like a different place, small and fragile, the lights in the distance flickering like dying stars. It reminded me of the stories Ben used to tell, about how the windmill wasn’t just a building but a reflection of the town’s fears and secrets. A monument to everything we refused to acknowledge.
As I turned to leave, I heard it — the faintest creak, carried on the wind. I froze, listening. It came again, rhythmic and deliberate, like the sound of blades turning. My pulse quickened, but when I looked back, the hill was empty, just shadows and stones.
I told myself it was nothing. A trick of the wind, maybe, or my own mind betraying me. But deep down, I knew better.
The town is rebuilding itself, slowly. A new shop opened on Main Street last month, and the school got a fresh coat of paint. People are trying to move on, but the shadows haven’t left. They’ve just shifted, taken new forms.
The symbols keep appearing, though less frequently now. Sometimes I catch myself wondering if they’re warnings, or reminders, or something else entirely. I don’t have the answers. None of us do.
Ben’s article ends with a question, one that’s haunted me ever since: If the windmill was destroyed, why does its shadow remain?
I don’t think I’ll ever know. But every so often, late at night, when the town is quiet and the air feels too still, I swear I hear it — that low, rhythmic creak, echoing from nowhere.
And I wonder if we ever really escaped it.
“The windmill’s blades groaned against the silence, moving without wind, as though dragging themselves to life. It wasn’t just creaking — it was breathing, alive in the worst way.”
The next chapter will be released in two weeks. Stay tuned to uncover the secrets of Kayro.
Up Next: The Shape of Rust: Chapter 1
