Ava dreams she's trapped in a room full of mirrors. She sees too many versions of herself, all distorted, all wrong. She gasps for air as the mirrors vanish into darkness. She hears them whispering her name, over and over, urgent and soft and strange. Shadowy hands reach out, long and sharp. She throws her arms up to protect herself. The touch is ice, a jolt that breaks through sleep and wakes her with a gasp. But the world changes, and she is surrounded by mirrors again. Her reflection laughs, slower than her scream.
Her pulse races. She's back under again—glass and whispers pressing in. It swallows her whole, drags her down. She's back in the room with the too-real mirrors, with the shadows that stretch and touch her, that know her. She struggles to wake, to breathe. The shadows tangle her up, a net of dark strands, a weightless prison. Ava bolts upright, fights for air. She's awake—but the world feels fragile, unreal. She collapses back into the dreams, into the hands, into the cold. Into the fear.
When Ava wakes again, nothing feels certain.
---
Meanwhile, Liam runs.
Liam runs through the streets of Clearwater, past the old diner, past his own house, past Mrs. Chen's library. But no matter how far or how fast, the shadows follow. They chase him, expanding, stretching across the sidewalk, over the houses, over the entire town. They swell, growing darker and wider. They swallow everything—streets, homes, even the sky. Everything.
Liam tries to outrun them. His feet slam against the pavement, his breath short and desperate. He glances back and sees nothing but shadows, swallowing the world, swallowing everyone he tries to save. He runs faster, legs burning, chest on fire. It isn't enough. The shadows reach him. He stumbles, falls, and jolts awake.
His room is dark, the shadows too long. He squeezes his eyes shut, but he can still see them. He can still feel them. He opens his eyes. He is running. Again.
Sophie is in the community center. The walls close in with ghostly whispers. They fill the room with broken memories, fragments of conversations. Her mother's voice echoes. Her friends'. Strangers'. The shadows murmur in the distance. The words drift from every corner, from every surface. They rise and fall, become clear, fade. She can't shut them out.
Books with shifting symbols float around her, bobbing like buoys in an ocean of words. They knock into her. Their symbols move and rearrange, alive and uncertain. The books open as she spins, pages blank, pages full. Her own words. Others'. Her head pounds with the strain. The whispers are relentless. The voices are relentless.
Sophie opens her eyes. Her room is silent. Her breath is loud and unsteady. She turns over. Her pillow is damp, her hands are cold. She closes her eyes. The voices start again.
She can't escape them.
Ava's dreams return. The shadows return, reaching for her, breathing with her, waiting. The cold is intense. She feels it spread through her body, to the ends of her hair, to her very cells. They shiver with its touch. She gasps and stirs, caught between waking and sleep, caught between fear and desperation. The whispers come from inside her. She hears them in her mind, in her breath, in her heart. Her name, again and again. A litany. A prophecy.
The glass breaks. The reflections break. Her world breaks.
Ava jerks awake. The darkness seems to shiver, the air thick with uncertainty. It feels like forever. She tries to stay awake. She tries to hold onto her world. But she falls asleep again.
Liam. Running, running. Faster. The streets are empty. The town is empty. He is empty. The shadows stretch with each step, with each breath, with each beat of his heart. He looks over his shoulder. The darkness swallows him. He looks over his shoulder. The darkness swallows him. He runs, and he can't stop.
Liam starts awake. The floor is hard beneath him, his heart harder. The shadows shift around him, thick and aware. His pulse is in his ears. He runs his hands through his hair, a rough and unsteady touch. It feels wrong. It feels real. He is afraid of what waits when he closes his eyes.
But the shadows are there when he opens them.
The community center, whispering her name. The books, drifting closer, invading. Her head, spinning, caught in the loop of her own fear. She reaches for something, anything, but the words are too much. They tangle and multiply, alive and unsettling. Like a thousand Lucians. Like a thousand truths.
The books shift. The words shift. They shift her.
Sophie wakes again. She's alone. She isn't. The past surrounds her, relentless. She moves through dreams and waking, each state less certain than the last. Her mind is bright with disbelief and wonder. With fear.
The whispering never stops.
Ava wakes with her pulse running like a wild thing. The first light of dawn edges the shadows, fills her room with strange and weightless clarity. She sits up, head still pounding, chest still tight. She wraps her arms around her knees, wrapping herself around her fear. That's when she notices the glow. A faint, impossible glow from her own hands, an unsteady blue-white pulse. She gasps, startled, her pulse a wild thing again. It brightens with the sound, with the quickening of her breath, with the flicker of anxiety. The glow is real. It's hers.
She shakes her hands, trying to snuff the light like a candle. But it doesn't go out. Ava watches, eyes wide, mouth dry. She holds her breath, a tentative experiment, and the glow dims with the exhale. Her own light. Her own control. The realization comes with a wave of new fear, a wave of new brightness. The shadows on her walls deepen and distort as she tries to calm herself, her own heartbeat keeping time with the glow.
Her breath catches as the room brightens, then settles into dimness. The light responds. It knows her. It moves with her.
Ava is lost in the impossible discovery, a mix of fascination and terror, of understanding and denial. The morning sun fills the room, harsh and insistent. Her hands cast shadows sharper than glass, shadows that pulse with the light. It can't be true. But it is. She stares until she can no longer pretend it's a trick of the mind.
The light is there. It's her own.
Ava grabs her phone. Her hands are trembling. They're still bright. Her fingers hover, hesitate, as she calls Liam. No answer. She tries Sophie. Her friends' silence is louder than the roar in her head, louder than her rapid-fire heartbeats. She is alone with the glow, with the fear, with the realization that her dreams may be real.
She tries to hold it in, tries to hold herself in.
The light expands.
Ava's fear grows with the brightness. Her dread grows with the strangeness. Her hands grow luminous.
She forces herself to breathe. Forces herself to think. Forces herself to move.
Ava pulls on a pair of gloves, covering the glow, covering the truth. She takes one last look at her room, at the strange and familiar shadows. Her dreams were too much. Her waking is more. Her pulse pounds in her ears, in her veins, in her light. She presses her palms together. The brightness sneaks out at the seams.
She doesn't know what to do. She doesn't know how to stop it.
But she knows who might.
Her hands are steady and bright. Her face is not. She leaves to find her friends.
Liam jerks awake. His heart slams in his chest, and his head spins with shadows. It takes a moment to realize he's on the floor. It takes another to realize he's cold. He shivers, confused, and glances at his bed. He isn't there. He stands, muscles tight and shaky. His shadow should rise with him. It doesn't. Instead, it reaches across the carpet, stretches for the wall, a dark and misshapen reflection. It wavers, distinct and unfamiliar. Liam waves his arm. His shadow is wild and untamed. His shadow is more than one.
He freezes. Breath held, mind spinning. Another shadow pulls from his, separates itself, skitters like a frightened animal. It jerks and trembles, flickers and bends. He waves again. It doesn't. He moves closer to the window, sunlight streaming in.
The shadows follow.
All of them.
Liam's heart hammers in his chest, quick and unsteady. He waves both arms now, a desperate test, a wild attempt to understand. The first shadow follows, obedient and fast. The second lags behind. A third appears. A fourth. They are too many, and they do not behave.
Liam backs away, horrified. The shadows grow.
He can't get away from them.
The floor lamp teeters. He doesn't see it, but his shadows do. He watches them catch the falling object, two stretching long, the others moving to assist. The lamp lands with a soft thud, too quiet. His breathing isn't. His thoughts aren't. He is drowning in shadows, a blur of motion, a tangle of reflections.
Liam's pulse pounds. He runs a hand through his hair, ragged and unsure. The other hand keeps working. A button slips loose. He fumbles with it. His own movements don't feel real. His own movements don't feel his. The shadows creep and stretch, some in time with him, others out of step. They follow like an unwanted chorus. They mimic like unwelcome guests. He can't control them. He can't stop them.
He dresses quickly.
He leaves his shirt untucked, the collar uneven, the cuffs open.
His uncertainty is clearer than his reflection.
He doesn't bother to fix it.
Sophie wakes to the murmur of ghosts. They wrap around her, close and familiar. Her room is full, impossibly full, a crowd of unseen speakers. She sits up. Her mother, talking about school. Ava, laughing about a game they lost. Liam, saying the air feels wrong. The voices rise and fall, some clear, some muffled. They come from everywhere. From nowhere. Sophie grips the sheets. It can't be real. But she hears them, the weight of the past thick in the air. She hears them. It's impossible. It's undeniable. She reaches for her recorder.
The voices are clear. As if they were waiting. As if they were alive. They know her. They move through her, a brush of memory, a touch of forgotten dreams. The more she listens, the louder they become. She pulls the recorder close, pressing it to her ear. It doesn't speak. She presses it to her notebook. It does. "The chosen ones," a man's voice. "The sacrifice," a woman's. Her own name, over and over.
Sophie's mind reels. She needs to know. Needs to make sense of the noise, of the whispers, of the pieces that fall together in ways they shouldn't. Her pulse is as rapid as her thoughts. She breathes quickly. She breathes deeply. The voices follow.
She touches the desk. Her mother's voice again, worried, discussing bills. Ava, unsure, saying it's not magic. She touches the floor. The walls. Her chair. They all speak, a rush of sounds and history, some she recognizes, some from before she was born. All of it impossible. All of it true. Her hands shake, but her mind doesn't. Not yet.
Her breath comes fast. Her pulse comes faster. She listens. She records.
She knows it should be frightening, but it's more than fear. It's possibility. It's wonder.
It's terrifying.
The voices press in, insistent. The voices crowd around, closer. She tries to ignore them, tries to find herself in the chaos, tries to breathe. But they find her. She needs a plan. She needs to know more. Her heart is wild. Her hands are steady.
Sophie moves quickly. She finds a notebook. She finds a pen. She writes and records, writes and records, everything she hears, everything she feels. It's strange. It's impossible. It's real. Lucian's voice comes back to her, his words more clear than she wants them to be. Her pulse is quick. Her mind is quicker.
It has to be the objects. It has to be the past. She doesn't want to believe it, but she can't stop. She has to believe it. She can't stop. The plan forms, unsteady and strong, the need for understanding clearer than the confusion. The plan forms. She goes to meet the others.
Ava waits in the woods, the morning warm and bright, the space empty and cold. She looks at her hands. They're steady and bright. She presses them together. They're still bright. She presses her eyes shut. She's still alone. Her dreams are too much. Her waking is more. When she opens her eyes, the others are there. As if they appeared out of shadows. As if they were ghosts. "You're here," Ava says. It's a statement and a relief. They move to her, their own secrets barely held. Their own mysteries barely contained. Ava holds her breath.
"You won't believe this," Liam says, eyes wild, voice breathless. His clothes are disheveled, his hair is a mess. His shadow is more than one.
Sophie clutches her notebook, her recorder. "You will," she replies. "You will."
They look at each other, waiting for the others to speak first. They look at each other, not knowing where to begin. They look at each other, full of secrets, full of discoveries, full of disbelief and excitement.
"Are you..." Ava starts, unsure.
"Are you..." Liam echoes, more certainty than question.
"Just say it," Sophie urges.
The floodgates break. Their words come fast. The chaos of the last hours pours out. They are lost and found in the noise, in the realization that they aren't alone, in the realization that this is happening to all of them.
"The shadows," Liam says. "It's like they're alive."
"Just like you," Sophie says. "It's not just you."
Ava's breath catches. She opens her mouth, closes it, opens it again. "It's exactly what he said would happen," she whispers. Her hands are steady. She pulls the gloves off. They're not.
Liam watches the glow with fascination and fear. It isn't just him. He isn't alone. "Is that...?" he asks. "You?"
Ava nods. "I thought I was dreaming," she says. "I thought I was losing my mind."
They look at Sophie, waiting.
She holds out the recorder. "Listen," she says. "It's Lucian."
His voice is a ghost in the morning light. "Awakening. Connection."
They feel the truth of it. They feel the wonder and fear of it.
Liam is silent. Then his face lights with determination. "It doesn't change anything," he says.
Sophie gives him a sharp look. "It changes everything."
Liam runs a hand through his hair. The shadows follow. "I still don't trust him."
"We need to know more," Ava says, her voice full of doubt and conviction.
Sophie stands between them, torn. She can't ignore the evidence. She can't ignore the past. "And if he knows more than we do?"
"Then we need to be careful," Liam insists.
Ava looks at them, heart and pulse as fast as the light in her hands. "What if we go back?" she asks. "What if he can help?"
The words hang in the air, a thin thread of possibility, of certainty, of hope.
The day stretches and bends around them. The clearing feels too wide and too narrow, an open space crowded with possibilities. Ava holds her hands out, her own suns in her own sky. She closes her fingers. The light tightens. She opens them. It expands, a solar system, a world. It thrills and frightens her, this new ability. It draws her in. Liam stands back, close but distant, his shadows trailing like cautious animals. Sophie writes in her notebook, words like maps to this new territory. She knows the map is never the place. Not anymore.
Ava directs the light toward a tree, a branch, a leaf. It obeys. It dazzles her, the ease, the effortlessness, the way it feels like more than light. The way it feels like hers. She forgets the dreams. She forgets the fear. She forgets everything but the glow.
Liam moves further away. His shadows stretch with him, reach with him, a chorus of moving shapes. He stands still. They don't. The independence scares him. It excites him. He wonders if it's like Ava's light. If it's his. He waves an arm, focused and determined. The shadows multiply. They fan out, thin and wild, further than he's tried before. He is more and less afraid with each attempt. He is more and less afraid with each success. The shadows touch, they move, they are his hands in the distance.
Ava and Liam watch each other, curious and cautious. Sophie moves between them, the recorder in one hand, the notebook in the other. The clearing is full, impossibly full, a rush of sounds, a rush of memory. She knows it's from them. From Ava and Liam. She feels a new thrill, a new discovery. The ability draws her in. It unsettles her.
Ava's voice, softer than the breeze. Liam's. Her own thoughts, scattered like seeds. It's overwhelming. It's real. It's more than real.
Sophie touches the recorder. "The trio is awakening," it says. "The prophecy begins."
They stop. They stare at each other, disbelief etched on their faces. A thrill, a fear, a sense of new certainty.
Ava's hands glow bright, full of light, full of meaning. Liam's shadow grows large, full of depth, full of purpose. Sophie's heart beats wild, full of sound, full of everything she never thought was possible. Everything they never thought was possible.
"It's true," Ava whispers. "It's all true."
The shadows encircle them, protective and strong. The light enfolds them, warm and brilliant. The sound surrounds them, alive and eager. It's happening. They're happening.
Liam moves to Ava, hand over hers. His grip is tight and sure. "Whatever's happening to us," he says, his voice strong, his conviction stronger, "we face it together."
Sophie stands back, breathless. She watches their hands, her own tentative. "We face it together," she repeats. Her voice doesn't falter.
The light grows brighter. The shadows pull closer. The voices rise.
"The prophecy begins."