AELIA REVA
There's a weight over me, inside me, everywhere at once. It's not the heaviness of ordinary sleep, this is thicker, denser, the kind that clings like wet fabric and seeps deep into my bones. My head feels suspended in something warm and slow, my thoughts moving through it like they're trying to swim upstream.
I try to shift, but the effort dies before it begins. My eyelashes twitch, but my eyelids refuse to open. My arms feel as though they've been pressed into the earth. My legs… they barely exist in my awareness, not in the way of pain or loss, but in that eerie, hollow way when you forget a limb is there until it moves.
The dampness on my face is the first thing I truly register, not water from the river. It's warmer, heavier...salty. My own tears. I don't remember starting to cry, but the ache lodged deep in my chest says it's been happening for a while. My throat aches as if I've been swallowing sobs that never reached the surface.
Somewhere, far enough away to be muffled but close enough to stir something inside me, a voice cuts through the dark.
"Aelia, hear me. I'm here. I'm coming for you."
Ulric.
It's not just the sound, it's the presence. It's inside my head, deep and steady, not loud but impossible to ignore. That voice I've heard in the quiet, the one that has always felt like home even before I understood why.
"Aelia, hear me. I'm here. I'm coming for you."
The words are the same ones he's said before, the same cadence, the same quiet command that makes the rest of the world fall away. It's like he's right in front of me now, hands cradling my face, his forehead resting against mine, the way he does when he wants to be certain I hear him.
I try to answer. I push my thoughts forward, shaping them into his name, reaching for that invisible string between us. But I hit something...cold and unyielding like pressing my palms to thick glass.
He's there, so close I can feel the faint hum of him, but the barrier holds. I can't reach him!
Frustration sparks like static under my skin. I push harder. I try again, forcing the syllables of his name through my mind like I'm shoving them through locked doors. My lips part, I'm almost sure they do, but the sound dies before it's born, swallowed by whatever haze has wrapped itself around me.
Memories surface in flashes, jagged and out of order.
The dock. My legs dangling above the water. The smell of pine drifting with the breeze. Sunlight glinting off the ripples like it was trying to outshine the sky. Ulric's hand brushing mine, his knuckles warm against my skin.
The light dulls. The air grows still. A shadow moves behind me, tall, deliberate and then everything folds in on itself like someone slammed a door on the moment.
The haze tightens.
Something brushes my wrist...not pain but the ghost of fingers trailing over my skin. A thumb presses lightly into the center of my palm, slow and deliberate, like someone memorizing its shape. My breath catches. I try to pull my hand back but it doesn't move.
Ulric's voice cuts through again. "Aelia, hear me."
I want to. God, I want to. I throw myself at that thread between us, pouring every ounce of will into it. But the wall in my mind is solid and final, and no matter how much I fight, I can't break it.
His voice begins to fade, not like he's giving up, but rather he's being dragged backward, further and further away, the connection stretching thin enough to snap.
The warmth his presence leaves behind vanishes, replaced by something else entirely.
A chill creeps into me, slow and unrelenting, curling around my bones until it feels less like an intruder and more like it has always been a part of me.
Beneath the echo of his words, something else begins to stir.....a voice I do not recognize, threading softly through the haze until it weaves itself into the edges of my thoughts.
"You're finally where you were supposed to be..", The words slip through the fog, smooth and patient, curling around me with the deceptive gentleness of a snake lulling its prey. "...with me."
The syllables slide into me like water down stone, wearing me down in ways I can't fight. The haze thickens, coaxing me to stop pushing, to let go, to sink so deep I forget why I was fighting at all.
And I hate that a part of me wants to.
Somewhere beneath all of that, Ulric's voice still exists. It's faint, barely more than an echo, but it's there.
I grab hold of it. Not with my hands, those are still useless but with whatever stubborn, reckless piece of me refuses to let him be a fading memory. I press myself toward it until the cold cracks, just a little.
The wall in my mind trembles.
I feel my lips move. The sound is faint, fragile, but this time it slips free, carried on the last breath I didn't know I was holding.
Ulric…
❦︎ To Be Continued ❦︎