The alarm went off at six thirty. Elena reached one hand out from under the covers and felt around on her nightstand for a few seconds before finding her phone. She grabbed it, turned off the alarm, and remained still with her eyes closed. She didn't want to get up—not today, and not after that dream. She inhaled slowly, trying to calm the irregular pounding of her heart. Her T-shirt clung slightly to her skin, and a thin sheen of sweat covered her forehead. She ran a hand through her hair before finally opening her eyes. The white ceiling of her apartment appeared above her. Elena stared at the ceiling for a few seconds, as if trying to make sure reality was really what she saw before her. She sighed. That forest again. She had been having that dream for as long as she could remember. At first, when she was a child, she would wake up crying and call for her mother. Over the years, the crying had disappeared, but the fear had remained.
The dream always began the same way. An immense forest with no moon or stars, not even the slightest animal sound. The trees stood so close together that their branches formed a black ceiling overhead. The ground was covered in dead leaves, damp and cold. Elena was always walking alone, without knowing where she was going or why she was there. And something was watching her. She never saw clearly what it was, only two eyes. Two red eyes, motionless, appearing between the trees. For years, they had remained far away from her, but little by little, they had drawn closer. Tonight, they were almost within reach. Elena sat bolt upright in bed and pressed a hand to her chest. Her heart was still beating far too fast.
“It’s just a dream,” she whispered.
Her voice sounded foreign in the silence of the bedroom. She pushed off the covers and placed her feet on the hardwood floor. The floor was cold. She shivered and quickly pulled on the cardigan draped over the back of a chair. Her apartment was small, but she loved it. A one-bedroom apartment on the third floor of an old apartment building, with walls thick enough to muffle the sounds of the street. The paint in the hallway was beginning to peel in places, and the hardwood floor creaked whenever someone walked too close to the window, but Elena had learned to think of those flaws as part of her everyday life. She had been living alone for almost two years. At first, she had thought it would be difficult. In the end, she had come to appreciate the silence. No one to ask why she came home late, no one to criticize her for leaving a cup in the sink, no one to ask why she always refused to talk about her mother. She had learned to manage on her own, to rely on no one but herself. Elena crossed the bedroom and entered the small bathroom. She turned on the light and looked at herself in the mirror.
Twenty-two years old, with brown hair sticking out in every direction when she woke up, green eyes that sometimes veered toward gray depending on the light, and a few dark circles betraying her too-short nights. She had always thought her face was unremarkable.
She splashed cold water on her face. When she lifted her head, her reflection was still looking back at her. Elena frowned slightly. For a second, she had the impression that her eyes had changed—a fleeting, almost ridiculous impression. She blinked. Everything was normal.
“You’re going crazy,” she breathed.
She grabbed a towel and dried her face. In the bedroom, her phone vibrated. She went back to get it. Six forty-two.
She already had nine notifications, including three messages from her coworker reminding her that she absolutely had to arrive on time. Elena smiled despite herself. Her life was almost reassuringly ordinary: a job she didn't particularly like, an apartment she struggled to afford, groceries to buy, bills, schedules, and days that all looked alike. Maybe that was precisely why she refused to dwell on her dreams. They didn't matter. Dreams were just dreams. She set her phone on the bed and opened the drawer of her nightstand to take out a pair of earrings. Her fingers touched something cold.
The pendant.
Elena carefully took it out of the drawer. A thin silver chain was attached to a small, dark medallion, almost black. At its center was an engraved symbol she had never managed to identify: a circle crossed by three curved lines. She had worn it since childhood. Her mother had given it to her a few days before disappearing. Elena had been six years old. She had only a few memories of that time: the scent of lavender, a soft voice, brown hair, a song she could no longer piece together completely, and this sentence.
“Never let anyone take this pendant.”
At six, Elena hadn't asked any questions. Even now, she had no idea why her mother had told her that.
She slipped the chain around her neck. The cold metal touched her skin, and for a fraction of a second, she felt a strange shiver. Instinctively, she touched the pendant, then shook her head.
“A dream,” she whispered again.
She headed toward the kitchen. In less than an hour, she would have to leave the apartment and go to work. The day was about to begin—a perfectly normal day.