The rain falls upward. Not like tears, not like light—but like time itself unraveling in slow motion. Each droplet shimmers as it rises, luminous threads pulling away from the earth, as though the world is unraveling at the seams. You try to grasp one as it ascends, but your fingers slip through it, and it evaporates into the air, leaving only a whispered ache where it once was.

You walk—barefoot—through the garden of twisted flowers, their petals glowing with colors you don’t have names for. You’ve been here before. Or maybe you haven’t. But the air feels familiar, and that’s enough to make your heart beat slower, like something waiting to surface from the depths of your chest.

A shadow stirs near the mirrored sea, the water still as glass, reflecting not the sky but the echoes of forgotten things. You see him—him—but don’t recognize the face, yet you know it’s his. There’s an ache deep in your stomach, a quiet longing that slips past your ribs and settles into your bones. He stands at the edge, watching you.

"Do you know me?" His voice carries to you, soft like the sound of a wind you can’t hear, but feel deep inside your chest. His words don’t press on you—they wrap around you, pulling you close without touching.

The words tumble around your mind like leaves in the wind, and you reach for them, but they scatter. Your throat tightens, and the world holds its breath, waiting for you to remember.

"I… think so," you say, but even to your own ears, the answer feels fragile, like glass. "I… I forgot."

He doesn’t move. His eyes—those eyes—are something both painfully familiar and completely alien. There’s a depth in them, an ocean you’ve once swum in and never quite left. His face remains unreadable, but the corners of his mouth twitch, almost imperceptibly, as if he’s fighting to hold back something.

"I’ve been waiting for you," he says, and it sounds like a confession. Like an ache too deep to speak aloud, a weight that lingers in the spaces between breaths. "I knew you’d come back. Even if you forgot me."