“She did not know his name… but something inside her already recognised him.”
Lena
I can’t remember falling asleep.
That’s what stayed with me after experiencing that moment.
There was no slow fading, no heaviness in my eyes, no thoughts quieting down like they usually did when I got home.
And in a moment, I found myself lying on top of my covers, still in my party clothes, staring at the ceiling as the moonlight stretched across.
Then, for a strange second, I felt like I was in two places at once.
I saw myself.
From above, or from somewhere outside, I’m not sure which, the view didn’t quite make sense.
I saw my own body lying on my bed, breathing softly.
I was still in my party clothes, with my hair messy.
Suddenly, that strange view of myself dissolved.
I was already somewhere else entirely.
The cold hit me first.
It pressed against my skin from every direction, as if it had been lurking just beneath the surface of my life and had finally broken through.
I looked down at my hands.
My own hands, the chipped nail polish on my left middle finger that I’d kept meaning to fix, the small silver ring on my left middle finger that I’d had since I was fifteen, and the shape of my knuckles.
Everything looked the same.
And yet, nothing felt the same at all.
I lifted my head slowly and stopped breathing.
Trees.
They were endless, towering, ancient trees that stretched in all directions, vanishing into a deep abyss of darkness.
They weren’t like the trees on my street.
These were otherworldly, as if they predated humans having names for them.
Their bark was dark, and their roots arched over the ground like frozen monsters, completely indifferent to me.
Everything was perfectly still.
I should have been terrified.
My heart raced, pounding so hard it felt lodged in my throat.
Every rational instinct was screaming: Run!
Move!
Get out!
This isn’t safe.
But beneath it all,
I wasn’t feeling fear; I felt something different.
I felt something quiet and sure.
This familiar feeling.
This place felt familiar.
I knew I had never been here in my eighteen years of ordinary life, yet something in me recognised it—the way you recognise a song you haven’t heard in a long time, maybe since childhood.
I pressed my lips together and tried to steady my breathing.
“…Where am I?”
My voice disappeared, swallowed by the dark, and silence took over as if I had never spoken.
The trees stood unmoved.
Then, I heard it again.
That same sound I heard before I fell asleep.
The one I had pressed my face into my pillow to ignore.
It didn’t feel like sound at all; it felt like it passed right through my soul.
My chest tightened.
My body recognised that sound even if my mind didn’t.
This was real.
No matter how impossible it seemed, standing in this freezing forest felt more real than my own bedroom.
Something moved behind me immediately.
I felt it before I saw anything.
The atmosphere changed.
The space became a presence.
I could sense the movement felt slow and certain, like whatever it was knew exactly what it was doing.
Something is watching me, I thought.
And perhaps it has been for a long time.
At that thought, my whole body went rigid.
“…Hello?”
The trees seemed to swallow my words, and silence responded.
Then I turned.
This time, it wasn’t deliberate; something pulled me.
I saw two glowing eyes in the dark between the trees—they were amber and gold, like firelight trapped in something alive.
They were warm, steady, and watching me.
I should have screamed or run, like in stories or films I’d seen.
But my legs wouldn’t move.
I stood still in the cold forest.
Then, like a magnetic pull, our eyes met, and a single word entered my mind, pushing past the fear:
Beautiful.
The most beautiful eyes I had seen.
The eyes didn’t look cold.
They appeared focused, as if searching for me for a very long time.
And now, they had finally found me.
My mind went quiet.
Then I took one step forward.
This time again, I didn’t choose it.
My body moved on its own, as if I had no control.
The eyes shifted slightly as if surprised, as if nothing had ever moved toward them before.
“…Who are you?”
My voice was a weak whisper.
It trembled, and I couldn’t control it.
The darkness between the trees seemed to stir.
The darkness moved.
The glowing eyes stayed fixed on me, unblinking.
Behind them, something massive shifted.
I couldn’t see its shape, but I could feel its size pressing against the darkness.
I sensed it, even if I couldn’t see it.
Even through the fear and my racing heart, that strange feeling of “knowing” grew stronger.
Then, a voice spoke.
It didn’t come from the air; it spoke directly into my chest.
It was warm and steady.
“You heard me before you slept.”
Everything stopped.
The forest, the cold, even the sound of my own heart felt distant.
Those words echoed inside me.
It was true.
I had heard something before I slept.
Something deep I had tried to ignore.
And whatever was in front of me had been there then.
“…What?” I breathed.
My voice broke.
Then everything shattered.
The forest broke apart like glass.
The trees, the cold air, the glowing eyes—all disappeared at once.
I gasped and woke up.
I was already in my room, sitting upright in bed.
My hands gripped the mattress tightly, needing to feel something real.
I was shaking, covered in cold sweat.
Slowly, my room came into focus.
My desk.
My dresser.
Everything I had known all my life.
You’re safe, I told myself.
It was just a dream.
Then I looked at the window.
The curtain moved—just a small wave, as if touched from outside.
But the window was closed.
I was sure of it.
I sat perfectly still, staring at the fabric.
The cold from the dream crawled back over my skin.
I pulled my knees to my chest and held them tight, trying to believe it was only a nightmare.
But I could still feel that voice inside my chest.
I could still see those golden eyes I had seen, and the way I had stepped forward instead of running.
I remembered everything.
I pressed my forehead to my knees and closed my eyes.
“What is happening to me?” I whispered into the dark.