Amara went back and sat curled in the corner of a couch, her knees pulled tightly to her chest. The journal rested against her like a shield, its weight both grounding and unnerving. She didn't buy it. The thought of purchasing it felt wrong. It was as if paying for it would betray something deep inside her, like she was stealing from herself.
Yet, despite that hesitation, she couldn't bring herself to leave it behind. It was like it had always been hers. Like it had been waiting for her to find it, and no transaction in a store could change that. So, without a second thought, she had walked out of the bookstore, unnoticed by the bustling crowd around her, the journal tucked under her arm like an old friend she had been longing for.
The words scrawled on the first page haunted her, an echo that circled her thoughts endlessly. You knew me before the world broke us. The phrase kept playing in her mind, louder than the noise of the street, more persistent than the hum of the city around her. What did it mean? What was the connection between these cryptic words, the man in her dreams, and the strange pull she felt toward the journal?
There was a weight to them—an undeniable truth that seemed just out of her grasp, like a memory locked behind a door she couldn't open. And yet, in some way, she understood. She understood without truly knowing why, as if she had known these words all along, perhaps from another life or another time.
The journal was more than an object. It was a thread pulling her through the fabric of something she couldn't yet comprehend. And no matter how hard she tried to push it away, the feeling grew—stronger, sharper.
She looked out the window at the world moving outside, the sounds of the city blurring into one long hum, and felt a strange sense of displacement. It was as if the world hadn't moved forward since she'd walked out of that bookstore, frozen in time with the journal as the only thing that anchored her to this reality.
A part of her wondered if she was the only one who could feel this pull, this strange familiarity, or if there were others who had experienced the same unsettling encounter with fate. The city around her felt vast, teeming with people whose lives intersected in ways she'd never understand. Was there a connection, a story written in the stars, that brought her to this moment?
Was this all part of something larger than herself? Or was she merely a passenger, caught up in a journey that had already begun long before she had realized it?
Her fingers traced the edge of the journal, and a shiver ran down her spine. Something in the air had shifted, and she couldn't shake the feeling that she was standing on the precipice of something far bigger than she could ever imagine.
She hadn't told anyone about the strange dream and the man with those violet eyes.
The world outside was pushing forward, but she felt as though she were standing still, caught in a moment where the answers were just beyond reach, teasing her with their silence. And with each passing hour, that silence grew heavier, pressing in on her until all she could hear was the echo of the words from the journal, reverberating louder than anything else in her mind.
That morning, after the bookstore, a bouquet had arrived at her door—lilies, their petals soft and white, their scent lingering in the air like something too pure for the chaos in her head. A neat card had been tucked between the stems, its edges sharp and precise. The handwriting on the card was unmistakable clean, clipped, and far too formal for someone who had been anything but to her. It was from Mr. Talbot.
"Get well soon. We need you back."
Those words, so sterile and impersonal, had landed like a weight in her chest. She hadn't responded. Couldn't. What did he expect? She didn't owe him an explanation. She didn't owe anyone anything anymore.
Her phone buzzed again. Once. Twice. A third time, each vibration a reminder of the life that kept calling her back, a life that no longer fit, that no longer made sense.
She ignored all calls. She let the phone ring on, its insistence like a pull toward something she couldn't bring herself to return to. She didn't want normal anymore. She didn't want the world outside, the one that had once felt so certain. She wanted to understand what was happening to her, to the strange pull that seemed to tighten with every passing day.
That night, as the air grew heavy with the weight of her thoughts, the dreams returned—this time different, deeper, quieter somehow. They felt more real, like memories woven from shadows. They didn't come with the same urgency, but instead, they settled into her like a secret.
A quiet presence, a storm that swirled just beneath the surface, waiting to break free. The dreamscape was darker now, full of unspoken things, each passing moment leaving her with more questions than answers. As she drifted deeper into sleep, the man's violet eyes came to her again, not with the same haunting force, but with a quiet sorrow that seemed to echo across the distance.
She stood barefoot in a field that shimmered silver beneath a sky painted with too many stars. They hung low, swaying like fruit on invisible branches. The grass rippled, alive with wind she couldn't feel. Her dress was made of smoke, weightless and dark, her hair wild in the stillness.
He was there.
Not moving toward her, not reaching out, but simply standing in the same place as always. Still. Watching.
There was something about his presence that made everything else fade into the background. She stood frozen, caught in the weight of his gaze, unable to look away, as if some unseen force had anchored her to the ground.
"Who are you?" she whispered, her voice barely more than a tremor, caught between fear and longing, something unspoken tangled in the words she couldn't quite form.
He didn't answer. He never did. And in his silence, there was a strange comfort, a quiet understanding that didn't need words. It was as if the space between them had been filled with all the things they couldn't say, all the things he had yet to show her.
But his violet eyes burned with something old, something ancient, something that she couldn't fully grasp but felt deep in her chest. Grief. Recognition. Mourning. A sorrow that seemed to stretch back across lifetimes, a history she wasn't meant to remember but could feel in her bones.
In that silence, in that shared weight between them, something in her stirred—a deep ache, a longing that felt like a memory just out of reach. His presence was a pull, a force she couldn't fight, as if the very air around her had thickened with their connection.
And then it came again. The sound she had come to recognize—soft, steady, and reverent, like a prayer whispered in the dark. Her name.
"Amara."
It wasn't just spoken. It was felt, a vibration in her chest, a warmth that seemed to fill every corner of her being. It was as though she had always known the sound of it from somewhere beyond time, from a place she had long since forgotten but still carried within her. And even though she had never heard it in waking life, it was as if she had been waiting for it, longing for it, all this time.
She gasped, lurching upright in her bed, chest rising and falling with breath that came too fast, too sharp.
The room was dark, the silence thick and heavy, pressing in around her. It was the kind of quiet that felt suffocating, like the world was holding its breath, waiting for something.
Except—
There, beside her on the pillow, lay a single petal violet in colour.
She blinked, staring at it. Her mind couldn't make sense of what she was seeing. It was too impossible, too surreal. The soft glow of the moonlight that filtered through the window caught it just right, casting the petal in an ethereal light. It shimmered, almost as if it were alive, pulsing gently with an energy that felt so wrong and yet so familiar.
Not imagined. Not dreamed. And certainly not from this world.
Her breath caught in her chest, the air thick with disbelief. The petal was delicate, its edges curling just slightly, as if it had been placed there by a hand that had once touched her but was now gone. She reached out tentatively, her fingers trembling as they hovered above it, afraid to touch what might vanish at her slightest movement.
The world around her seemed to fade. The hum of the city outside, the warmth of the room, even the steady beat of her own pulse—all of it became distant, like she was standing on the edge of something far larger than herself. Something that didn't belong in her world. The petal, resting so innocently on her pillow, felt like a bridge between the mundane and the extraordinary, a sliver of something that could unravel everything she thought she knew.
Something was happening.
The weight of it settled deep in her chest, heavy and impossible to ignore. It was like the very air had shifted, like the world was beginning to tilt, and she was teetering on the edge of something she couldn't yet see. But she could feel it, something ancient and unspoken tugging at her heart, drawing her closer to the unknown.
And she was no longer certain she wanted to wake up from it.
For the first time since everything began, she wasn't afraid of what was happening. She wasn't afraid of the mystery, of the man with the violet eyes, of the storm that had shattered her reality. The uncertainty that had once made her recoil now felt like a strange comfort, a beckoning to something deeper—something that might finally make sense of the chaos inside her.
Perhaps, for once, she could embrace it. Perhaps, for once, the impossible could be real.