The Dream That Wouldn't Leave
Mina's POV
The cold air hit me as I stepped outside.
I pulled my hoodie tighter and kept walking. The path from the science building to the school gate was long and poorly lit, just two rows of dying streetlamps that flickered more than they shone.
My sneakers were still damp from this mornings incident. Every step made a soft, wet sound against the pavement.
I always counted my steps when I walked alone at night. It helped me stay focused inside my own head.
One. Two. Three.
The envelope was still tucked under my arm. Twelve pages on political theory. I had already started building the argument in my head, the structure first, then language, then I would sand it down until it sounded like Damian.
Confidence. A little arrogant. Heavy on opinion and light on evidence, because that was how Damian Vale moved through the world.
I had ghostwritten eleven essays for the three of them this semester alone.
Eleven.
And not one of those teachers had ever looked at me and thought — wait.
Forty-two. Forty-three. Forty-four.
I turned off the main path and cut through the narrow lane behind the equipment shed. Because it saves seven minutes to get to my house.
Seven minutes meant I could eat before my landlady locked the kitchen.
I was halfway through the lane when I heard footsteps behind me.
Not too close. But deliberate.
I didn't speed up.
Because speeding up tells people they've scared you. Instead I adjusted my grip on my bag strap and kept my eyes forward.
But the footsteps kept pace.
Then a voice — low, almost gentle, which made it worse.
"You walk home alone every night."
I stopped.
It wasn't a question. It was an observation.
Casually.
I turned around slowly.
Damian Vale was leaning against the wall of the equipment shed with his hands in his pockets, still in his school uniform, tie loosened just enough to look intentional.
He was watching me with that soft, unreadable smile.
"I'm not following you," he said.
"Relax."
I stared at him.
"I cut through here too sometimes. He said."
He pushed off the wall and fell into step beside me like I had invited him.
"It's faster."
I started walking again. Faster than before.
"You finished last week's chemistry paper in one night," he said, keeping pace easily. "I checked the sources. Every single one was legitimate. Some of them I'd never even heard of before."
He paused.
"Where did you find the Hartley study?"
I didn't look at him.
"Right."
He almost laughed — a quiet sound, not mean for once.
"Forgot who I was talking to. He said."
We reached the end of the lane. I turned left. He stopped at the corner, hands still in his pockets, watching me go.
"Two days," he called after me as he was about to turn.
I didn't turn around.
"Until your birthday, I mean."
My steps slowed for just half a second. Then I kept walking and didn't look back.
………….
My room was on the third floor of a narrow building that smelled permanently of old wood and someone else's cooking. I paid three hundred a month for a bed, a desk, a lamp, and a window that faced a brick wall.
I locked the door behind me, sat on the edge of the bed, and pressed my palms flat against my knees.
Two days.
I didn't know why it felt like a countdown to something terrible. Birthdays had never meant anything to me before — no cake, no calls, no one who remembered without being reminded. But this year the number sat in my chest like a stone that kept getting heavier.
I opened Damian's envelope. Read the prompt. I opened my notebook.
And started writing.
I always wrote by hand first. Something about the pen moving across paper felt like the only honest conversation I was allowed to have. The words came easily — they always did.
Within an hour I had six pages roughed out, argument clean and tight, exactly the kind of essay that would make a professor nod slowly and give it an A minus to seem balanced.
I put the pen down around midnight.
That was when the dream started — not while I was asleep, but in the space between awake and not, when my eyes were closed and my body was still but my mind hadn't fully let go yet.
Starlight.
A sky I didn't recognize — with too many stars, arranged in patterns I had never seen in any textbook. And below the sky, a forest made entirely of silver trees, their bark pale and luminous, their leaves catching light that had no source.
And a voice.
Not speaking words exactly. More like the idea of words — meaning without sound, the way you understand something in a dream without being told.
You are almost ready.
I snapped awake immediately.
My room was dark. The lamp had gone off — the timer I set to save electricity. My notebook was still open on the desk. The pen had rolled to the floor.
I sat very still and listened to my own breathing.
Then I felt it. The same vibration from this evening, back again, stronger this time. It moved through my chest like a second heartbeat, slow and deep and completely out of sync with my own.
I pressed my hand to my sternum.
My palm was warm.
I crossed to the small mirror above my desk and leaned in close.
My eyes.
The brown was still there — but at the very edges, threaded through like veins of metal in dark stone, something silver was spreading. Slowly. Quietly.
The way dawn spreads before anyone notices the dark is already gone.
I stared at my own reflection for a long time.
Then I went back to bed, pulled the blanket over my head, and made myself a promise.
Two more days. Just hold on two more days.
