The morning light crept hesitantly through the thin curtains of your bedroom, casting long, pale streaks across the wooden floor. The room was quiet save for the faint rustle of the wind outside, but your chest rose and fell in uneven breaths as the remnants of another nightmare clung to you like a second skin.

It was always the same—those sunken, hollow eyes that seemed to pierce through your soul, the impossibly long fingers reaching for you, the whispered promises of eternity in a voice that dripped like cold venom. Nosferatu.

You sat up abruptly, your skin damp with sweat despite the chill in the air. The dreams had started weeks ago, uninvited and unrelenting, pulling you into a darkness that felt far too real. At first, you had dismissed them as nothing more than figments of an overactive imagination, but the growing weight of his presence in your mind was impossible to ignore. It wasn’t just a dream. It was a bond, a connection you hadn’t asked for, and yet, it tethered you to him in ways you couldn’t understand.

Swinging your legs over the edge of the bed, you pressed your bare feet to the cool floorboards, grounding yourself. The morning sun should have been a comfort, but instead, it felt like a fragile barrier, a thin veil of safety between you and the inevitable.

You couldn’t explain how you knew, but you knew—he was closer now. The dreams had become more vivid, his whispers more urgent. Somewhere deep inside, you felt him waiting, watching.

As you moved to the small basin near the window, splashing cold water onto your face, you caught your reflection in the mirror. The dark circles under your eyes told a story of sleepless nights and quiet dread. And yet, there was something else, something that hadn’t been there before. A part of you almost didn’t recognize yourself in the mirror after all this years of nightmares.