I always reach the same point in that place. The moment I feel like I'm about to turn. And something inside me screams louder than everything else:
Don't.
So I never see what's behind me. But I always wake up feeling like I already did.
I stood up and walked to the small window. Outside, Eldermire was asleep. Lights off. Fields still. Wind moving like it didn't care about anything I was feeling.
A normal world. A quiet world. A world that doesn't ask questions I can't answer. But my body doesn't believe in "normal."
It never has.
I flexed my fingers slowly. They moved too precisely. Like they already knew what they were supposed to do in a fight I've never learned.
"…Why do I feel like I've already survived something I can't remember?"
No answer. Only silence. Only that strange pressure behind my thoughts, like something pressing from the other side of a locked door.
I lay back down, staring at the ceiling. Sleep wasn't coming back. It never does after that dream because it doesn't feel like sleep. It feels like returning and I don't know where I keep returning to.
Before I closed my eyes again, one thought stayed longer than the rest: Something in me knows a name I was never taught. And I'm afraid of what happens when I finally remember it.
Outside, the wind shifted across the fields.
Somewhere far beyond Eldermire, something ancient responded—not with sound, but with attention.
Like it had felt me wake up.
Again.