Rain had a way of turning Willow Creek into a memory.
Soft and endless, it whispered across rooftops and curled around streetlamps like it had a secret to tell. Luna Carter watched it fall from her apartment window, the red box still resting silently on her desk — unopened since yesterday.
She hadn't dared touch it again.
Not after what she heard in that church.
Not after that voice.
Still, she hadn't slept. Her mind spun in endless loops. That ring. The scroll. The whisper in the dark. She kept dreaming of fire… and a man whose face she never saw.
She needed answers.
And there was only one place to start: City Archives — the old, barely-used department hidden two floors beneath City Hall.
It was colder underground. The air tasted like dust and forgotten things. Fluorescent lights flickered, humming like they too had grown tired of being ignored. Luna wandered through rows of rusted filing cabinets, some labeled, some forgotten. Her sneakers echoed on the linoleum like distant footsteps chasing her.
She had spent nearly two hours digging through building records, searching for anything about Saint Alder's Church — who owned it, who built it, and what was sealed beneath it.
Nothing made sense.
But then she found it.
An old file, yellowed with time and marked:
Restricted – Property Dispute (Closed Case)
Date: 1893
The name attached to it?
Grayson.
She blinked.
The Grayson family was old money — Willow Creek royalty. Their name was everywhere: Grayson Park, Grayson Law, Grayson Conservatory. But what did they have to do with a crumbling church sealed off for nearly a century?
She flipped the page—
And froze.
Footsteps.
Slow. Deliberate.
Her breath caught as she turned, heart hammering.
That's when she saw him.
He wore a black coat, perfectly fitted over his broad shoulders, drops of rain still clinging to the fabric. His dress shoes made no sound as they crossed the old concrete floor. His eyes — a piercing, unreadable grey — locked onto hers the moment she moved.
For a moment, the air went still.
Luna stared.
She'd never seen him before… and yet somehow, she had.
Not here. Not now.
In a dream.
In fire.
In ruin.
Her stomach dropped.
"Who are you?" he asked, voice calm, controlled.
It wasn't the question that startled her.
It was how he looked at her.
Like he was searching for something in her face.
Like he already knew her — but didn't know why.
"I… I'm an intern," she said, stepping back instinctively. "Luna Carter."
The man's face remained unreadable.
"You're not supposed to be down here."
"I was assigned to the Saint Alder's clearance yesterday. I'm following up."
He took one more step toward her. "And what did you find there?"
The question felt like a test. Her throat tightened.
"Why do you care?"
He didn't answer right away. Instead, his eyes flicked down to the file in her hand.
"Because whatever you woke up… didn't stay in that church."
A chill swept through her like winter wind.
She stared at him. "Who are you?"
He reached inside his coat and pulled out a leather badge.
Asher Grayson. Deputy Commissioner.
Her breath caught.
Grayson.
The name on the scroll.
The name in the archive.
The name that hadn't left her dreams since the rain began.
She didn't know what to say. Her mind raced through every possibility — was this a setup? A coincidence? Some insane dream bleeding into real life?
"Is this some kind of—" she began, but he cut her off.
"No. It's not."
"How do you know what I found in the church?"
He tilted his head slightly, eyes narrowing. "Did you hear it too?"
Her skin prickled.
"The voice?" she whispered.
A beat.
"You weren't supposed to hear it," he said quietly.
Luna stepped back. "Excuse me?"
"That place was sealed for a reason. Something was buried there. And now it's not."
He looked at her again — not like a stranger now, but like something… else. Recognition, maybe. Or warning.
"You opened it, didn't you?" he asked, softer this time.
Luna clutched the folder tighter. Her fingers trembled.
"I didn't know what it was. The scroll— it said my name."
She didn't expect the look that crossed his face — not anger, not fear.
Sadness.
"Then it's already started," he murmured.
"What has?"
Asher didn't answer. Instead, he stepped closer, gaze locked on her face.
"You should've never gone there."
Luna's pulse spiked. "I didn't mean to— I was just assigned—"
"You weren't assigned. You were drawn."
Silence fell between them, thick and heavy.
Outside, thunder rolled, low and distant.
Then she whispered, "Why do I feel like I've met you before?"
He didn't move. Didn't blink.
But he did answer.
"Because you have."
Luna felt her knees weaken.
"This is insane," she muttered. "I don't believe in fate, or dreams, or—whatever this is."
"You don't have to believe," Asher said. "It's already happening."
He turned away, pacing slowly toward the back of the archive. She followed him on instinct.
"You said it's started. What's it?"
He didn't stop walking.
"You saw the fire, didn't you?"
She halted.
Her blood turned cold.
"How do you know that?"
Asher finally looked back.
"Because I've seen it too. Every year since I turned seventeen."
Luna's voice shook. "What is this?"
"I don't know," he admitted, voice quieter now. "Only that it's older than this town. Older than my family. And it always begins the same way — with fire, a ring, and a girl named Luna."
She couldn't breathe.
"I think," he added, "we've lived this before."
Luna sat down hard on the edge of a metal desk, her legs unable to hold her up anymore.
Time looped in her head like a broken film reel.
The scroll.
The ring.
The dream.
And now him.
Asher.
The man she saw burning in her sleep.
"Why me?" she whispered.
His answer was the only honest one.
"I don't know."
Thunder cracked again outside, closer this time. The rain had turned angry — pounding against the city like a warning.
"I should go," she said abruptly, standing. "I need air. I need—"
"You need to be careful."
She turned to him.
"I don't know what's waking up," he said, "but it's tied to you. And if the pattern repeats—"
He stopped himself.
She stepped closer. "If the pattern repeats, what?"
Asher's jaw clenched. His voice dropped to a whisper.
"One of us doesn't make it."
Luna stared at him.
The silence between them felt alive. Electric. Heavy with things neither of them understood.
"I don't believe in patterns," she whispered.
Asher's eyes softened for the first time. "Neither did I."
And then, with a strange sort of gravity, he added:
"But I believe in you."
They stood there — two strangers bound by an invisible thread, caught in a story that had already begun long before either of them breathed their first breath.
Outside, the storm howled louder.
And somewhere, unseen by either of them, the red ring in Luna's desk began to glow.