She fell asleep again. And again she dreamed. But this time it wasn’t the forest. It wasn’t the mirror. It wasn’t Light screaming at her from the shattered glass.
It was a city. Foreign. Nothing like Eichenwald. Narrow streets, houses of gray stone, sunlight filtering through sparse clouds. The air smelled of fresh bread, smoke, and… something else. Something that made her heart beat faster.
Fear. She felt fear. But it wasn’t her own. It was someone else’s.
She stood in the shadows, watching. Like a ghost. Like an unseen observer. Below, on the street, people went about their lives. Soldiers in light armor, market women with baskets, children kicking a ball. An ordinary day. An ordinary city. An ordinary life.
And then she saw him.
A young man stood at the edge of the street, fists clenched tightly. His face was calm. Too calm. But his eyes… his eyes were burning. She recognized that look. She had seen it in the mirror — in her own reflection when she thought no one was watching.
Pure, unadulterated hatred. Directed at the entire world.
What is he doing?
she wanted to ask, but she had no voice.
Then she saw them.
A young knight and a girl stood in a niche by the wall. The knight was holding out a small wooden bird — crudely carved, crooked, but somehow… alive.
“A little house by the wall,” the knight was saying, his voice soft, almost shy. “A garden. Chickens. And… children. Someday.”
The girl laughed. Her eyes sparkled. She took the bird, her fingers gently closing around the wood.
“Will you come back?” she asked. “Do you promise?”
“I swear,” he replied. “For you. For our future.”
Amanda stared at them, and something inside her twisted tight. She knew this scene. She knew this pattern. She knew exactly how it would end. “No,” she thought. “No, please. Don’t do this.”
But she couldn’t stop it. She was nothing more than an observer. A ghost trapped in someone else’s dream.
The mysterious young man stepped forward. His hand closed around the stone—an ordinary cobblestone, the kind that littered the street. He lifted it. Slowly. Almost weightlessly.
Amanda wanted to scream. She wanted to throw herself between them. She wanted to rip that stone from his grip.
But her body wouldn’t obey. She was here. And there. At the same time. And nowhere at all.
The impact landed with a dull, wet thud.
The knight didn’t even have time to turn. His legs buckled, and he dropped first to his knees, then onto his back. Blood began to seep from beneath his fair hair, mixing with the dust on the ground.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
The wooden bird fell onto the stones. Quietly. Alone.
The girl didn’t scream. Not at first.
At first, she simply stared—at the bird, at the knight, at the stone still clutched in the murderer’s hand.
Then… a sound tore from her throat that Amanda had never heard before. It wasn’t a cry. It wasn’t a shriek. It was something primal, animalistic, ripped straight from the deepest part of the soul.
The killer raised the stone again.
And again.
And again.
Amanda watched, tears streaming down her cheeks. She couldn’t look away. She couldn’t close her eyes. She saw every motion. Every strike. Every drop of blood that splattered against the gray stone.
“Why?” she thought. “Why is he doing this?”
“He hates this world,” she realized. “He hates it the same way I hated my own life. The same way I hated myself when I woke up in someone else’s body.”
But he went further. He didn’t just hate.
He destroyed.
And then he looked at her.
“Amanda!”
Her eyes snapped open.
Randel was kneeling beside the bed, his face pale, eyes filled with worry.
“You were screaming again,” he said softly. “What are you dreaming about?”
She stared at him. At his hands—clean, free of blood. At his eyes—alive and full of love. At his lips that had just whispered her name.
“A nightmare,” she whispered. “Just a nightmare.”
“You’re crying.”
She touched her face. Her cheeks were wet.
“These aren’t my tears,” she said. “They’re… not mine.”
He didn’t understand, but he didn’t press her. Instead, he pulled her into his arms, holding her close the way he had after the battle.
“It’s okay,” he murmured. “I’m here. I’m right here.”
She pressed herself against him, feeling the warmth of his body, listening to the steady beat of his heart.
But the scene still lingered in front of her eyes. The stone. The blood. The wooden bird lying forgotten in the dust.
“Who are you, killer?” she thought. “And why am I seeing your dreams?”
There was no answer. Only a heavy weight in her chest and the fear that this dream wasn’t just a dream. That it was a warning. That one day the hatred she felt stirring inside her would break free.
And then… then she would become him.
Or was it another reality?
“Randel,” she whispered.
“Hm?”
“If I ever… if I become someone you don’t recognize… what will you do?”
He looked at her. There was no fear in his eyes.
“I’ll find you,” he said. “No matter where you are. No matter who you become. I’ll find you and bring you home.”
She wanted to tell him that the home he spoke of might no longer exist. That the person he loved might just be a shell—a foreign soul inside a borrowed body.
But instead, she simply held him tighter.
“Promise?” she whispered.
“I promise.”
Outside the window, dawn was breaking. Amanda watched the first rays of sunlight pierce through the clouds and thought about what she had seen. The young knight who had dreamed of home. The girl holding the wooden bird. The man who had lifted the stone.
“This isn’t my world,” she thought. “This isn’t my memory. But why does it feel like it happened to me?”
She didn’t know. She wasn’t sure.
But one thing she knew for certain—there was something important in that dream. Something she needed to understand. Something that was meant to change her.
“I don’t want to be him,” she thought. “I don’t want to hate. I don’t want to destroy. I want… I want to love. To build. To live.”
She looked at Randel, who had already drifted back to sleep beside her, exhausted from her cries. His face was peaceful, vulnerable. She gently touched his cheek.
“I won’t become him,” she whispered. “I promise. I’ll remember. But I won’t become him.”
She closed her eyes.
Sleep did not come. Only silence and the soft morning light.
Meanwhile, far away, in another world, the killer stood over the knight’s body, staring at his own hands. They were covered in blood. Someone else’s. Still warm. Still alive.
“Pattern,” he whispered. “Just a pattern.”
He lifted his head. Above him stretched an alien sky. Alien stars. An alien life.
“I will destroy you all,” he said into the emptiness. “Everyone who believes in happy endings. Everyone who dares to dream. Because dreams are lies. And I… I am the truth.”
Humanity, wait for me.
He turned and walked away, leaving behind the wooden bird on the stones, the fallen knight, and the girl who would never laugh again.
He left to continue his war.
Against the world.
Against the patterns.
Against himself.