The morning sunlight did little to ease the lingering chill in Liora's bones.
She became aware of the light before she became aware of herself—thin strands of gold slipping through the torn edge of her curtain, brushing across the floor, climbing the wall inch by inch. It should have felt comforting. Morning always had. It was supposed to mean safety, normalcy, the quiet reassurance that the night had passed without consequence.
But her body refused to accept that comfort.
She woke with a sharp gasp, heart slamming violently against her ribs, fingers clawing at the fabric beneath her. The first thing she noticed was the cold. Not the pleasant coolness of dawn, but a deep, stubborn chill that seemed embedded in her muscles, clinging to her bones as though it had settled there permanently.
She was on the floor.
For a long moment, she simply lay there, staring at the ceiling, confused. The wooden planks beneath her felt hard and unyielding, their cold seeping through her clothes. Her sheets were twisted around her legs, half-dragged from the bed as though she had fallen—or fled—during the night.
Her heart was still racing, beating far too fast for someone who had just woken up.
Slowly, memories returned.
The whisper.
The frost on the window.
The shadow that moved when it shouldn't have.
The figure.
Her breath caught painfully in her throat.
"No," she murmured, squeezing her eyes shut. "No… it was a dream."
She pressed the heels of her hands into her temples, rubbing in slow, deliberate circles, as if she could physically push the memories away. Nightmares happened. Stress did things to the mind. Fear made illusions feel real.
It had to have been a dream.
But her hands were shaking.
When she finally forced herself to sit up, dizziness washed over her in a heavy wave. She waited for it to pass, breathing slowly, counting each inhale and exhale like an anchor. The room looked normal in daylight—small, slightly cluttered, achingly familiar. The dresser stood where it always had. The mirror reflected her pale, disheveled appearance without distortion. No shadows moved where they shouldn't.
And yet.
The cold lingered.
She pulled herself to her feet and wrapped her arms around her torso, rubbing warmth back into her skin. Her gaze drifted toward the window, drawn by an inexplicable unease tightening in her chest.
As she stepped closer, something inside her shifted.
The world outside looked wrong.
At first, she couldn't articulate why. The street was the same one she had looked out onto countless times before—the same narrow road, the same row of houses, the same cracked pavement and distant hum of early-morning traffic. But everything seemed… sharpened. The colors were too vivid, too precise, as if someone had turned the contrast too high.
And yet, at the same time, it all felt slightly out of focus—like a photograph printed just a fraction off from clarity.
Shadows lingered in places where sunlight should have erased them. They pooled beneath parked cars, stretched along walls, clung stubbornly to doorways. People passed by below, heading to work or school, their movements stiff, their steps oddly synchronized.
Liora leaned closer to the glass, her breath fogging it faintly.
Something was wrong with their faces.
They were pale. Not sickly, not exhausted—just pale, like color had been drained from them. Their expressions were blank, eyes unfocused, as though they were moving through routine rather than intention. For a horrifying second, she wondered if she looked the same to them.
Then she saw it.
A figure stood across the street, just beyond the bend in the road.
At first glance, it appeared ordinary—human-shaped, upright, still. But as her eyes focused, her stomach dropped. The figure shimmered faintly, its edges blurring and reforming as though it struggled to maintain its shape. The air around it seemed distorted, bending subtly, refusing to settle.
Her pulse thundered in her ears.
The figure lifted its head.
Their eyes met.
The stranger's gaze was dark and impossibly deep, like looking into water with no visible bottom. There was no surprise in those eyes. No confusion. Only recognition—and knowledge so heavy it made her chest ache.
She felt exposed, stripped bare by that single glance.
Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the figure was gone.
Vanished.
The space it had occupied stood empty, ordinary, harmless. Liora stared, blinking rapidly, her hands gripping the window frame so tightly her fingers ached.
"What… what was that?" she whispered.
A shiver ran through her, sharp and involuntary.
Her logical mind leapt into action, scrambling for explanations. Hallucination. Exhaustion. A trick of light. Her brain, desperate for stability, offered up every rational possibility it could grasp.
But her gut twisted painfully.
Something was following her.
Something that didn't belong entirely to this world.
Something that existed in the thin, fragile spaces between life and death.
Her phone buzzed.
The sound made her flinch so hard she nearly dropped it.
Heart pounding, she looked down at the screen. An unknown number stared back at her—no name, no location, nothing familiar. Every instinct screamed at her to ignore it, to throw the phone aside and pretend it hadn't happened.
Against her better judgment, she answered.
"Hello?" Her voice came out thin, unsteady.
"Liora," a low, calm voice said.
The sound of her name sent ice through her veins.
"You cannot ignore it any longer," the voice continued. "Run, or you will be taken."
Her breath hitched. "Who… who is this?" she stammered. "What are you talking about?"
Silence followed—heavy, measured, as though the speaker was listening rather than hesitating.
Then, softly, "I cannot stay long. They watch."
A chill crawled down her spine.
"But I will meet you—at the old chapel by the river, tonight," the voice said. "Do not be late."
The call ended.
Liora stared at the black screen, her reflection faintly visible in the dark glass. Her hands trembled uncontrollably, fingers numb, heart racing so hard it bordered on pain.
The stranger.
The figure.
The whisper from the night before.
It was all connected.
And worse—she knew with sickening certainty—it was inevitable.
The rest of the day passed in fragments.
She moved through her routine like a ghost, going through motions without fully inhabiting them. She showered, dressed, ate without tasting. All the while, she kept glancing over her shoulder, half-expecting to see that shimmering figure standing just behind her.
Objects around her seemed subtly altered. A book lay open where she swore she had closed it. A door stood slightly ajar when she remembered shutting it. Her reflection lingered in the mirror a fraction longer than it should, as if reluctant to let her go.
Once, while walking down the street, she caught movement just beyond her peripheral vision. She turned sharply, heart leaping, only to find empty air. But she could swear she heard whispers—soft, overlapping, spoken in a language she couldn't understand.
By evening, panic had fully taken hold.
Her chest felt tight, her breaths shallow. She paced her apartment, fingers tugging anxiously at her sleeves, mind racing through possibilities and consequences. She knew she had a choice—pretend none of this was happening and hope it went away, or confront whatever waited for her.
Every fiber of her being screamed for survival.
As night fell, she found herself walking toward the old chapel.
It stood near the river, abandoned and forgotten, its walls cracked and smothered in ivy. The windows were shattered, jagged glass catching moonlight like broken teeth. The doors hung crooked on rusted hinges, half-rotted and groaning softly as she pushed them open.
Moonlight bathed the chapel in silver gloom.
Shadows danced where no source of light existed.
The moment she stepped inside, the air grew cold—heavy, charged, alive with an unseen presence.
A whisper brushed her ears.
"You are marked. But you are not lost."
Liora froze.
Her heart thundered as she understood the truth at last: whatever had been calling her, whatever had followed her since midnight, was no longer distant.
Tonight, she would face the first true glimpse beyond—
Into the place where life and death collided.
And nothing was as it seemed.