The Line Between Dreams and Touch
Sera woke up with her heart racing.
She didn't remember falling asleep.
One moment she had been standing in her dorm,
Talking to the man in the shadows and the next, she was lying in her bed, blankets tangled around her legs, breath shaky like she had run miles.
Morning light filtered through the blinds, but the room still felt thick with last night's presence.
Not dangerous.
Just… lingering.
Like he hadn't fully left.
She pressed her hand to her wrist.
She could almost still feel the cold touch from the night before.
---
Classes felt unreal that day.
Jade kept talking, Micah kept laughing, Raya kept sketching in her notebook, and Eli kept analyzing everyone's posture like he was secretly writing a psychology thesis on them.
But Sera felt disconnected—floating.
Her mind kept echoing the same moment:
That shadow rising.
That voice.
Even thinking it made her pulse quicken.
During their lecture, the projector dimmed suddenly. A few students complained. The professor tapped buttons uselessly.
Sera stiffened.
A shadow behind the projector screen twitched—
growing a fraction too tall, too sharp, before shrinking back.
She looked around.
No one noticed.
But she felt him.
Following her.
Watching.
Listening.
Every time she blinked, she felt a cold drift along her spine, as if he brushed by her unseen.
Every time she exhaled, the air around her seemed to pull tighter, like he was drawing closer.
She dropped her pen.
Jade nudged her. "Seriously, what is going on with you?"
Sera forced a laugh. "Just tired. I didn't sleep well."
Jade narrowed her eyes. "Yeah, because you look like you're either being haunted or you've met a guy and won't tell me."
Sera swallowed. "Something like that."
She didn't dare explain.
How do you tell your best friend that a literal shadow whispered her name ?
---
That night, the rain returned—soft at first, then steadily heavier.
Sera sat on her bed, staring at the far wall where the shadows gathered the thickest.
"You're there, aren't you?" she whispered.
The lamp flickered.
She felt a shift—something stretching awake, like a creature uncurling after lying perfectly still.
Then:
Cold air wrapped around her ankles, climbing slowly up her calves like a breath traveling upward. She inhaled sharply, gripping the blanket.
"Umbra…"
The shadows on her wall rippled, forming the outline of a tall figure.
This time, clearer.
More deliberate.
Not a twist of darkness—
but a man-shaped silhouette reaching toward her with a slow, fluid motion.
Her heartbeat stuttered.
"umbra" she whispered the words, echoing what the shadow had said.
"that's my name" said the shadow
"Why do you keep showing yourself now?" she whispered.
His voice slid through the room, soft, dark, undeniable:
"You called me."
Sera's lips parted. "I— I only said your name."
"Names have power."
He moved closer.
The shadows around him thickened as though the room was bending toward him.
The lights dimmed, then stabilized.
Sera whispered, "Are you… real?"
The air beside her dipped as if someone sat on the edge of the bed—
right next to her.
A cold, invisible hand brushed her thigh, and then her waist.
Barely there.
So light she questioned if she imagined it.
But the warmth blooming under her skin was very real.
"Real enough for you to feel," Umbra murmured.
Her breath caught.
"Why me?" she whispered.
A long silence.
Then—
"Because you're the first person who ever looked into the dark…"
His silhouette leaned closer.
"…and didn't look away."
Sera shivered—not in fear, but in the kind of pull that felt like gravity shifting.
He wasn't just haunting her.
He was choosing her.
And she didn't know what scared her more—
the thought that he might disappear…
or the thought that he never would.