The house was quiet when the call came.
It was late afternoon, and Sophie had just come downstairs with her notebook tucked under one arm. The sun was beginning to tilt, casting golden lines through the curtains. Her aunt was out, the radio was off, and for once, the silence felt still — not lonely.
The phone rang. Once. Twice.
She picked it up on the third.
"Hello?"
"Is this Miss Sophie Adelana?"
Her fingers tightened around the receiver. "Yes."
"This is Dr. Alexander, calling from University General. We just got your last round of bloodwork in."
Her mouth went dry. "Okay."
There was a pause — just long enough to make her heart twist.
"There's nothing urgent," the doctor said quickly, as though sensing the panic prickling behind her silence. "But we'd like you to come in next week. We've noticed a few fluctuations in your counts."
"What kind of fluctuations?"
"Platelet density. White blood cell behavior. Some levels are lower than we'd like."
"Does that mean…?"
"It doesn't mean anything conclusive yet. But we'd like to run a few more tests. Nothing invasive. It's precautionary."
Sophie nodded, even though he couldn't see her. "Okay. I'll come."
"Good. I'll have my assistant call you with a time."
The line clicked off before she could ask anything else.
---
That night, the silence had weight.
Sophie sat on her bed with her knees pulled up to her chest, the notebook open but untouched on her lap. The shadows in the attic seemed longer tonight, stretching across the walls like they were trying to listen.
She didn't write.
Not yet.
She lay back on her bed, pulled the blanket over her chest, and stared up at the ceiling, where the wooden beams crossed like ribs.
Eventually, her eyes closed.
---
The dream began slowly.
She was in the woods — not the forest behind her aunt's house, but somewhere darker, older. The trees were impossibly tall. The moon hung low, silver and swollen. Her breath came out in clouds, and the earth beneath her feet felt soft and wet.
There was no sound.
No wind. No birds.
Just the faintest crunch of leaves as she walked forward.
She wasn't sure why she was walking.
She wasn't sure where she was going.
But she knew he was there.
---
James.
She saw him standing beneath the largest tree — a weeping willow, its long branches swaying though there was no breeze.
He was turned away from her.
"James?" she called.
He didn't move.
She walked closer. The earth stuck to her shoes, cold and thick like mud, but she kept going.
"James," she said again, reaching out.
He turned.
But it wasn't him.
Not really.
His eyes were black — not dark, not shadowed, but black like a void, like something that had forgotten what light was. His skin was pale as frost. His mouth was set in a line too straight, too tight, too calm.
And behind him — behind the willow — something moved.
A shape.
A figure cloaked in smoke, its limbs long and shifting, face unreadable, as if it were made of ashes and regret.
"Who are you?" Sophie whispered.
James stepped forward — no longer James, not exactly — and touched her face.
His hand was ice.
"You wanted to know," he said softly. "You asked."
The world around them groaned, the trees bending inward.
The smoke figure moved again.
And Sophie — trembling, confused, afraid — whispered, "What are you?"
James didn't answer.
But his eyes said everything.
Not human.
And then the willow tree split down the middle with a sound like cracking bone, and the smoke surged forward—
---
She woke with a cry.
Her chest was tight. Her forehead damp. The blanket tangled around her legs like a trap. She sat up in bed, heart hammering.
The attic room was dark, quiet, real.
But for a long moment, Sophie couldn't breathe.
She pressed a hand to her chest.
Just a dream.
Just a dream.
But even as she repeated it, her eyes stung with something close to fear.
---
The morning was cold and dull, and she moved through it in a fog.
She didn't tell her aunt about the hospital call.
She didn't write anything in her notebook.
And when she opened her phone and saw a message from James — "Let me know when you're free again. I'll bring tea." — she stared at it for a long time before replying.
"Sure. I'll let you know."
She added a heart emoji after several seconds.
Then deleted it.
Then put the phone down and stared at the ceiling again.
---
Later that day, she walked to the garden behind the house. The rain from the day before had left everything smelling clean, but the soil was still damp. Her sneakers sank slightly as she paced in circles.
She knew dreams were just dreams.
But this one had felt… different.
It hadn't felt like her imagination.
It had felt like memory.
Or warning.
---
And yet, even in her fear, Sophie didn't feel hate.
She didn't feel betrayal.
She just felt a dull ache in her ribs — the kind you get when you reach for someone and wonder if you ever really touched them at all.
---
That night, she wrote. At last.
---
Dear Future Me,
I had a dream. About James. About something inside him that isn't made of skin and memory like the rest of us. Something older. Something that watches.
I woke up shaking. Not because I think he'll hurt me.
But because I don't know what he's protecting me from.
Maybe it's himself.
Or maybe… it's the truth.
---