Darkness swallowed Luca whole.
Not pain, not death Just a void.
A void filled with one sound.
"Luca…" her voice.
Alessia's voice soft, and broken.
Calling him from somewhere he could not reach.
And then—Everything cracked.
Like glass shattering under the weight of a truth too heavy to hold.
A scream tore through the dark—his scream, her scream, the river's scream—and then the world snapped...
Alessia shot upright.
Gasping and crying. It was all a dream.
She clutches her chest like something inside was clawing to get out.
Her vision blurred with tears.
The space spun and her pulse thundered in her ears, and her hair clung to her sweat-damp cheeks.
For a moment, she didn't know where she was.
She didn't know when she was.
The river, the creature.
Luca's silver eyes—cold, godlike.
Her own voice, not hers, whispering his name—It all felt real.... Too real.
