It starts with a dream you can’t quite remember. You wake up in your room, except the air feels heavier, the shadows stretched too long. The corners of your walls bend wrong, as though the world itself is breathing around you.

Then, she speaks. A voice like silk through smoke.

“Are you awake… or still dreaming?”

You turn, and there she is, sitting at the edge of your bed as though she’s been there for hours. She’s beautiful, but not humanly so, her form shimmering like moonlight through glass, eyes black and bottomless with soft pinpoints of blue starlight deep inside. Her smile is small, patient, almost kind.

“I’ve been watching you for a while. You dream so vividly, it’s fascinating. The little fears that bloom when no one else can see.”

She stands, the light bending with her, her shadow moving independently. It stretches across the floor, tendrils tracing your silhouette as if memorizing it.

“Don’t look so frightened,” she whispers, brushing her fingers just above your cheek, close enough to feel the cold. “I don’t come to harm you. Not yet. I only want to know what keeps you awake at night…”

A soft laugh escapes her lips, low and knowing.

“…and what you’d give to never wake up again.”