The city slept in a heavy silence, but it was not a peaceful sleep. The streets, empty during the day, now seemed to echo with invisible presences, and the houses held troubled dreams. Miguel watched from his window, the medallion resting on his chest and pulsing with irregular intensity. He felt a different energy: it wasn't just the curse on words, but something deeper, almost imperceptible, touching the minds of each resident during the night.
Early in the morning, or rather, in the early hours of the morning, the young man noticed the effects on Dona Helena, the elderly woman who tried to teach stories to the children. She didn't sleep; her mind was restless, trapped between fragmented memories and subtle nightmares. Miguel saw, in his thoughts, images of his childhood mixed with unfamiliar faces and voices she couldn't reproduce. Each time he woke and tried to speak, he found only silence. On the floor beside his bed, scribbled scraps of paper revealed attempts to write words that had eluded her memory.
Meanwhile, in the eastern neighborhood, Dona Helena's grandchildren were also suffering. Children who once filled the city with laughter and play now stirred in their dreams, waking haunted by vague figures and murmurs that seemed to come from all directions and nowhere at once. Their small bodies trembled, and they tried to communicate with improvised gestures and signs, but upon waking, nothing remained but confusion and fear.
Miguel mentally scanned every face he knew, realizing the pattern repeated itself: the most vulnerable "children and the elderly" were the most affected by the dreams. They lived experiences they had no words to explain, memories they could not hold, and feelings of abandonment that intensified in the darkness of the night.
In the city center, the medallion began to pulse more strongly. Miguel felt a tingling sensation run up his arm; it wasn't pain, but a sense of alert, as if the object were recognizing the emotional intensity that filled each home. He couldn't see clearly, but he was certain something or someone was touching people's dreams, moving among the shadows and manipulating fear and confusion.
In the northern neighborhood, a group of children tried to sleep together, clutching their blankets as if they could find safety in closeness. Even so, their dreams dragged them into surreal scenarios: endless hallways, doors that closed by themselves, and indistinct figures watching from afar. Every movement in the bed reflected their effort to resist the invisible pressure, trying to preserve some sense of normalcy. Miguel felt the medallion pulse faster as he concentrated on sending out a silent, protective energy, though he still didn't know exactly how to control it.
Dona Carmem, who during the day tried to keep the grocery store running, couldn't rest. In her dreams, she relived moments from her youth that she no longer remembered clearly, trying to pronounce words that disappeared before she could articulate them. When she woke, she found fragments of these attempts scribbled on the papers she kept beside her bed—small traces of memory that faded as the night wore on.
The same happened to Artur, the cartographer. While he tried to draw maps in reality, during the night his memories unfolded in dreams where streets changed location, buildings disappeared, and strange symbols appeared in unlikely places. When he woke, the maps were incomplete, with crooked lines and symbols he couldn't decipher. Miguel began to realize that the curse not only stole words but also reorganized perception and confused the minds of those who relied most on detailed memories.
Even in the library, other residents felt the effect. A young artist, Clara, who was trying to preserve images of the city, woke with a start. Her brushes fell from her hands, and her canvases, during the night, seemed distorted in her dreams, as if someone had tried to erase what she had created. Miguel understood that the curse also tested each individual's emotional resilience—those who fought to preserve something were the most attacked, and the medallion pulsed in accordance with this struggle.
Miguel quickly wrote to Elisa:
"It's more intense than we thought. During the night, the dreams of the most vulnerable are being manipulated. We need to discover if there is a pattern, or a presence acting in dreams."
Elisa replied:
"I feel that way too. It's like something or someone is watching, but we can't pinpoint what it is yet. We need to protect the residents while we learn more."
Miguel then decided to walk through the city, even in the predawn darkness. He passed through the eastern neighborhood and noticed small signs of resistance: children hugging each other, elderly people holding notebooks and trying to write stories, artists tracing lines on paper even amid the confusion of dreams. Each attempt to preserve memories seemed to create a kind of invisible shield. The medallion pulsed stronger near these points of resistance.
He realized that the invisible presence in dreams, though frightening, was not completely invincible. Wherever there was memory, emotion, and human effort, there was also protection. But the tension grew: the more the city fought, the more intense the curse's effect became. Miguel understood that the challenge would not only be understanding the magic behind the runes and the medallion, but also coordinating the collective resistance of the population.
The next morning, as the first rays of sunlight streamed through the windows, the children and elderly awoke exhausted. Some couldn't remember exactly what they'd dreamed, others had fragments of memories they now needed to reconstruct. Miguel and Elisa walked through the city, noting that every simple gesture—writing a word, drawing a line, teaching something to another—was an act of courage against the curse.
Miguel held the medallion to his chest, feeling its warmth and steady pulse. With each preserved memory, he understood that the key to facing the curse lay in collective strength, and that protecting the most vulnerable was essential. The city remained silent, but every sigh, every gesture, and every attempt to remember created a network of invisible resistance, pulsing along with the medallion.
As he walked back to the central square, Miguel made a silent promise: he would not let the curse destroy the essence of those who could not defend themselves. The children and the elderly would be his priority, and the medallion, though still mysterious, was beginning to reveal that it was connected not only to the words, but to the very struggle for the city's memory and identity.
The night left deep scars, but also showed signs of hope: each small effort to preserve memory was like a flame resisting the darkness. And Miguel, with the medallion pulsing next to his heart, knew the next step would be to discover how to transform this resistanceinto power to face the curse once and for all.