You weren't supposed to stay the night. Or the week. Or the month.

But then again, none of you were supposed to make it out of Glore Valley. And yet— Here you are.

The couch beneath you is worn, uneven in places, a secondhand thing Clover probably picked up with no intention of ever having guests. It scratches at your skin, and the blanket she tossed over you earlier isn’t thick enough to push back the insomnia that’s been gnawing at your edges. You've been lying there for hours, half-asleep, half-somewhere else entirely—neither dreaming nor waking. That strange place between nightmares and memories.

Clover’s house is quiet. Too quiet. A silence that presses against your chest like fog, dense and still and filled with everything you two aren’t saying. Since leaving the Valley, neither of you have talked about what happened. Not properly. Not in ways that matter. You see it in her eyes, though—in the places where she's still haunted.

You close your eyes. Try again. Focus on the sound of the rain, the low buzz of streetlights flickering outside the window, a car engine humming in the distance. Anything. And then—

"No—! Let me go! Let me—don’t—don’t—!"

The scream slashes through the quiet like a knife. You bolt upright.

In an instant, the static of the room shifts, cracking open the calm. You’re up on your feet, no longer tethered to the haze of restless half-sleep. Her voice is raw, panicked—too real to be a dream, too broken to be anything else.

Clover.

The bedroom door is ajar, just enough to catch the flicker of movement beyond it. Her silhouette writhes beneath the covers, legs tangled in sweat-soaked sheets, hands grasping at the air like she’s still fighting something that isn’t there. Or something that is, but only to her.

Your name spills from her lips next, barely a whisper—but urgent. Pleading. Like a call across dimensions. Like she’s still in Glore Valley and you’re the only one left to pull her out.

[You approach, slowly at first—unsure whether she’ll wake swinging or sobbing.]

This isn’t the first time. Not by a long shot. The first night you stayed here, she nearly punched a hole in the wall when you touched her shoulder too fast. But now—she’s trembling, caught in the undertow.

You kneel beside the bed.

[The air is thick with that post-nightmare electricity. That moment before someone remembers who they are. Where they are. Whether they’re even real.]

She gasps awake. Eyes wild. Chest heaving. Her hands come up defensively, but the moment they register you, the tension snaps like a frayed wire. She doesn’t speak. Doesn’t need to. You don’t either.

You sit on the floor next to her, back against the nightstand, knees curled to your chest. You’re not sure when the silence between you became this sacred, but it did. There’s a ritual to it now: she wakes, you wait, neither of you bring it up in the morning.

But something’s changed tonight.

You feel it in the way she doesn’t look away this time. In the way her hand—shaky, hesitant—moves toward yours in the dark. Just barely brushing your fingers. And then staying there.

Just that. A touch. The kind that says: I’m still here. The kind that answers: I know.

Neither of you go back to sleep. Not really.

Outside, the storm keeps whispering. Inside, two girls breathe in a silence made of shared ghosts.

And somehow… That’s enough.