The world around me was swallowed by darkness.
Not the ordinary kind—but a black so dense it felt like wet smoke, clinging to my skin, seeping into my lungs. I tried to lift my arms.
Nothing.
My breath echoed, hollow and distorted, as if I were trapped inside my own skull.
Then I heard it.
Clink… clink… clink…
Metal striking metal.
Slow.
Methodical.
Measured.
A figure emerged from the dark.
Tall. Cloaked entirely in shadow. A hood of midnight fabric hung low, hiding everything beneath it—no eyes, no mouth, no face. Just the suggestion of a human shape. And yet something about it felt… wrong.
The darkness didn't cover him.
It bent around him.
My throat tightened. I tried to scream, to speak—my voice was gone.
The figure didn't walk toward me.
He glided.
"Jeanette…"
The voice was low and smooth, impossibly close—like it was spoken beside my ear and inside my mind at the same time.
I struggled to breathe properly, but my body refused to obey.
"What have you done to me?" I forced out.
"Nothing," he replied calmly.
"Why don't you tell me instead?"
The air constricted, pressing in like a closing fist. Something cold brushed the back of my neck—not a hand, just the unmistakable presence of someone standing far too close.
Relax. It isn't real, I told myself desperately.
"Unless you want it to be."
My heart stuttered.
He heard me.
How?
"You think this is a nightmare?" he continued softly. "Then why aren't you waking up?"
A pause.
"If I were only in your imagination, you'd be able to silence me."
His voice sounded like a whisper dragged across cold steel—quiet, steady, inescapable.
I swallowed hard. "Then what are you? What do you want from me?"
"What am I?"
He chuckled, as if I'd told the most amusing joke.
"You brought me here, and yet you don't even know who I am. How fascinating."
"I don't know you," I said, backing away even though my body barely moved. "And I didn't bring you here."
A soft metallic scrape followed—like fingers dragged slowly across iron.
"I don't want to hurt you," he murmured. "I only want to show you something."
A beat.
"You didn't imagine me, Jeanette. You remembered me."
He lifted his arm. I couldn't see a hand—but I felt the cold weight of something resting lightly on my shoulder.
"When the time comes," he whispered, "you won't only know what I want from you…"
The empty hood leaned closer. Too close.
"You'll know what we both want."
The darkness fractured.
The world shattered like glass—
I woke up in my bed, drenched in cold sweat, my heart hammering. The room was normal. Silent.
But the last echo of his voice lingered, curling through my thoughts like a memory I never chose to happen.
I glance around and l realised Astraea's bed was empty.
Things just couldn't get any weirder, could it?