The first time she met Gregor Blake. she didn’t see his face. She heard his voice first—low, steady, cutting through the panic. A sudden blackout swallowed the building without warning. Lights died. People shouted. Phones slipped from hands. And in the chaos, she collided with someone hard enough to lose her balance. A hand caught her wrist. “Don’t move,” he said calmly. “There’s glass on the floor.” When the lights came back on, he was standing closer than she expected. Close enough for her to notice the tension in his shoulders, the faint scar across his knuckle, the way his grip loosened only after he was certain she was steady. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I should’ve watched where I was going.” “It’s fine,” she replied, still trying to slow her breathing. They stepped aside as the crowd reorganized itself. For a moment, the world felt oddly quiet, like everything else had resumed except them. Someone called his name from a distance. “Gregor.” He turned his head. “Coming.” She frowned slightly. “That’s your name?” He nodded, almost amused. “Gregor Blake.” The shock didn’t come from recognition—it came from timing. Her phone buzzed in her hand. A notification appeared on her lock screen: a memory reminder, dated years ago. A note she didn’t remember writing, from a random day, with a single sentence: You’ll meet him when the lights go out. Her pulse spiked. She looked up at him again, searching his face for something—anything—that would explain the coincidence. But he was just a stranger. Calm. Real. Unaware. “You okay?” he asked. She swallowed. “Yeah. Just… weird timing.” He smiled faintly, as if he understood without understanding at all. Then the crowd shifted, and someone pulled him away. No numbers exchanged. No promises made. Yet the moment stayed. Because she knew one thing with unsettling clarity: She didn’t know who Gregor Blake was. But somehow, something in her life had known he was coming.