Sleep didn't come easy for Kai.It never did.
He lay on his back, staring at the cracks in the ceiling as faint light from the street filtered through the blinds. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw pieces of the past bleeding through the dark — flashes of sound, color, and guilt.
When sleep finally took him, it wasn't rest.It was memory.
He stood in a field, knee-deep in fog. The air was cold and wet, pressing against his skin like hands. He could hear someone calling his name — soft at first, then sharper, panicked.
"Kai!"
He turned.Through the mist, he saw her — the girl from before. The one he'd lost. Her outline flickered like a candle in the wind, half-there, half-gone.
He tried to run to her, but his legs felt heavy, the earth pulling him down like it wanted to swallow him whole.
"Wait!" he shouted, reaching out.
But she just looked at him, her face pale and blurred, and whispered something that made his blood run cold.
You promised.
The fog thickened. The sound of water rushed in — waves crashing, sirens wailing.Then came the smell — salt, iron, smoke.
Kai's breath hitched. He stumbled back, shaking his head."No… I tried— I tried to save you!"
The girl tilted her head, and for a second, her face changed. Her hair darkened. Her eyes became a deep, familiar brown.
Velithra.
He froze.
She looked at him — not with anger, but with sorrow.And then the words came again, breaking through the roar around him:
Don't let it happen again.
Kai jerked awake, gasping.
The room was dark, his chest tight, his shirt clinging to his skin with sweat.It took him a full minute to remember where he was. That it was just a dream.
Just a dream.
But the words still echoed in his skull, hollow and relentless.Don't let it happen again.
He got up, pacing to the window. Outside, the city was quiet. No sirens, no fog — just streetlights flickering over puddles.
He pressed a hand against the glass, his reflection staring back at him — pale, sleepless, haunted.
And under his breath, he whispered, "I won't."