Becky didn't sleep that night.
She read the journal cover to cover. Every word.
The entries grew darker as the pages went on
—more confusion, less identity, like the dream drained pieces of the writer each night.
But there was a pattern.
All of them wrote about a moment of temptation.
Butterflies in the air. A garden blooming out of season. And him.
Offering wine.
Sometimes in a glass.
Sometimes in a flower.
Sometimes… in the voice of someone they trusted.
It wasn't the same dream for everyone.
But the trap was always the same.
"Would you like to have some wine?"
Saying yes sealed your fate.
So Becky made a decision: She had to break the offer. Destroy the ritual before anyone else could fall into it.
She tore out one journal page that mentioned a "mirror garden," a place one dreamer said they found in the university greenhouse after a sleepwalk episode.
Morning came.
Classes passed in a blur.
Then she dragged her friends
—Gail, Gary, and Carly
—to the greenhouse.
"What are we even looking for?" Carly asked, brushing leaves from her hair.
"I don't know yet," Becky admitted. "But I need to be sure I'm not just losing my mind."
They found it after 20 minutes of searching.
A patch of black butterflies.
Two strange flowers side by side—one crimson, one bone white.
And behind them, a wall of ivy-covered glass that reflected nothing.
Becky stepped toward it.
In the reflectionless surface, she saw something else. Her dream-self. Pale. Empty-eyed. Holding a glass of red..
"I don't want it," Becky whispered. "I never wanted it."
The mirror cracked.
A ripple echoed through the greenhouse.
The butterflies scattered.
The flowers wilted.
And for the first time, she felt it—
The vampire was angry.
Because something had changed.