Some nights I dream of days I haven't lived, and wake mourning things I haven't lost.
Sometimes it's worse.
Sometimes I dream of the days where the world burns in ways no one else can see—
Where the wind smells like ash and the sky splits like wet paper.
I watch the moon fall from the sky...
I watch my mother forget my name...
I watch myself run from something I will never outrun...
And always, I wake with my breath caught in my throat, heart racing from a pain that hasn't yet happened.
The sound of tapping stirred Leila awake.
It wasn't loud... more like fingers drumming on a glass pane from the inside.
Her eyelids fluttered open slowly.
Shadows moved like smoke across her vision.
The place she lay in was quiet, but something pressed at the edges of her thoughts...
Then came the whisper... a gentle, sharp, and unmistakably young voice.
"The dangerous man...."
Said the boy.
"The one we cannot foresee..."
Leila stiffened, barely whispering.
