Images flashed before her like half remembered whispers. Faces drifted in and out like echoes from a past life she could not quite grasp. She felt small, caught between moments she knew and did not know.
One monet she was in a bright, colorful room, laughter ringing in her ears as children darted past, their hands smeared with paint and their cheeks flushed with joy. The scent of crayons and sugar hung in the air.
In the next instant, invisible hands tugged her backward—softly at first, then with an irresistible pull—and she was sinking into a bed, its sheets cool and unfamiliar.
When she opened her eyes again, sunlight spilled across a vast garden. She was running barefoot through wildflowers, the wind tangling her hair, the world awash in gold.
But then the scene wavered like ripples on water, and she was no longer among blossoms. Instead, she found herself crammed into a narrow, dimly lit room filled with teenagers. Their voices overlapped in a low, restless hum, and the air felt too warm, too close.
She found herself sitting by the window. Warm sunlight spilled in, glinting off the glassy book in her hands. The chatter of classmates drifted in and out, muffled as though heard undrwater. Her fingers brushed the paper. The words seem to shimmer, slipping into her mind like they had always been there - A tale of an emperor who seizes the throne through the blood of his brothers and uncles, a commoner bold enough to steal his heart, and a noble lady banished to the shadows.
The image shifted: she was outside. Suddenly, a cold rush of air, a blinding flash of light, sound of a distant crash. Loud buzzing voices swarmed in her ears.
Her eyes snapped opened, her skin slicked with cold sweat, heart pounding. She blinked and found herself staring at the canopy of the bed, her night dress clinging to her in cold sweat. For a long time she lay there, trying to steady her breadth. The dream had felt to vivid, too real.
Images, faces and names flickered through her mind - fragmanted yet hauntingly familiar. Then it struck her: the novel she had glimpsed within the strange vision - a foolish romance of an emperor who cast aside his betrothed to wed a commoner. The names stirred something in her—Kaelen, Isoldevarian… and her own, Elyssandre. All achingly familiar.
Surely it was only coincidence. Yet deep down, fear coiled in her chest—everything felt far too vivid, too real, to be just a dream. A shiver ran down her spine. Bit by bit, she felt an uncanny connection to the world in her dream, as though she had once walked its paths before.