The fire was endless.
Flames clawed up the walls like living hands, tearing through the marble, the portraits, the very air. Somewhere in the smoke, a man screamed her name — "Aria!" — as the ceiling caved in above him. She tried to move, but her feet wouldn't obey. Her reflection flickered in the cracked mirror ahead — terrified, trembling, and bleeding — but the face staring back wasn't hers.
Then everything shattered.
Aria woke up choking on a scream, her heartbeat thundering against her ribs. Sweat soaked through her T-shirt, her hair plastered to her face. The clock beside her bed read 3:07 a.m. She was shaking so hard her phone fell from her hand when she reached for it.
The dream again. The same fire. The same voice.
Every night for the past six months.
She pressed her palms against her eyes, trying to steady her breath. She didn't even know anyone named Aria in the dream — yet the voice sounded heartbreakingly familiar, like someone she'd once loved and lost.
But this time was different. When she looked at her hands, there was a faint black smudge along her wrist — the shape of a burn mark.
A dream couldn't leave marks. Could it?
By morning, the mark had faded to a pale outline, but her mind hadn't stopped spinning. She sat at her kitchen table, staring at her half-eaten toast, while the city outside blurred into a wash of car horns and morning light.
Her roommate, Maya, leaned against the counter, sipping coffee and watching her with worried eyes."You look like you fought a demon in your sleep," she said."Feels like it," Aria muttered."Same dream again?""Yeah." Aria hesitated. "Only… I think it's getting clearer."
Maya frowned. "Clearer how?"
Aria set her mug down, the porcelain clinking against the glass table."There was a man. I could hear him calling my name. The way he said it—it felt like he knew me. Like I meant something to him.""Dreams don't mean anything," Maya said lightly, though her tone wasn't convincing. "You've been stressed, that's all.""Maybe."
But deep down, Aria wasn't convinced. There was something about that dream — the smell of smoke, the ache in her chest — that felt too real, too heavy. Like a memory.
When she left for work, the sky hung low and gray. A drizzle coated the city in a faint silver sheen. The streets smelled of wet asphalt and exhaust, familiar and oddly distant at once. As she passed a bookstore window, something caught her eye — a photograph in a display of local art.
It was a picture of a burning mansion.
Aria froze. The house in the photo was exactly like the one from her dreams — the same ivy-twined balcony, the same cracked marble staircase.
She stumbled inside before she could think. "Excuse me," she said to the shopkeeper, pointing at the photo. "Where did this come from?"The woman behind the counter blinked. "That one? It's from a local photographer. Said it was taken after an old estate fire years ago. Nobody lives there anymore.""Do you know where it is?"The woman frowned. "Outside the city. Near the old riverside road. Why?"Aria's throat went dry. "No reason," she lied, turning to leave.
But the moment she stepped back outside, her phone buzzed.
Unknown Number:You shouldn't have remembered the fire.
Her blood ran cold. She glanced around — the street was empty except for a bus pulling away, a few pedestrians hurrying under umbrellas. No one was looking at her.
Another message blinked onto the screen:Stop searching, Aria.
Her fingers trembled as she typed back:Who is this?
No reply.
For the rest of the day, she couldn't focus. Every shadow seemed to move. Every voice on the street felt a little too close. She checked her phone every few minutes, half-hoping, half-dreading another message.
By the time she got home that night, rain had soaked her coat through. She tossed her keys onto the table and leaned against the door, shivering. The apartment was quiet — too quiet.
"Maya?" she called out.
No answer.
She walked into the living room, heart pounding. The TV was still on — flickering static. On the coffee table sat a glass of half-finished water and an open book. But what made her stop was what lay beside it:
A burned photograph.
It was her. Standing next to a man whose face had been burned away.
Her phone buzzed again.Unknown Number:You were never supposed to remember him.
Aria dropped the phone.
The mark on her wrist — the one that had faded that morning — now burned again, faintly glowing under her skin.
And somewhere in her mind, a voice whispered the name she'd been trying to forget.
End of Chapter 1