Elena remained seated on the living room floor for a long time. She hadn’t moved since the creature disappeared. Her hands had stopped trembling, but her mind still refused to comprehend what she had just experienced. She stared at the spot where the thing had stood only minutes earlier. At last, she got up, her legs weak. She went to the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror. Her face was pale, her eyes reddened with fear. She turned on the faucet and splashed cold water on her face.
“Everything’s fine.”
She stopped and gave a nervous laugh.
“No. Nothing’s fine.”
She went back to her bedroom. The pendant was still around her neck, the red light had disappeared, but the crack was still there. Elena tried to remove the chain. This time, it came loose without any resistance. She set the pendant on her nightstand. She didn’t want to wear it anymore. She picked up her phone. Her fingers stopped above Camille’s number. She could call her—she probably should have called her—but how could she explain what had just happened? A creature had entered her apartment, it had spoken, it had said it wanted her blood, and Elena had done something with her hands, something impossible. She looked at her palms, which were perfectly normal. Suddenly, she felt exhausted. Fear had given way to a deep fatigue. She lay down and stayed beneath the covers, her eyes open. She was afraid to close them, afraid of returning to the forest, yet sleep eventually overcame her.
Elena opened her eyes.
She was standing barefoot among the trees. The forest was exactly as she remembered it, but something had changed. She could hear the wind, leaves shifting overhead, while a thick mist crawled between the trunks. Elena looked at her hands. She was wearing the same shirt she had been wearing when she fell asleep.
“I’m dreaming.”
Her voice echoed strangely. She turned in a circle, but no direction seemed any different from the others. And yet she knew this place. For sixteen years, always the same trees, always the same darkness, always the feeling of being watched.
She moved forward. For the first time, she didn’t want to run. She wanted to understand. She walked between the trees. A branch cracked behind her. Elena turned around, but there was nothing there. Then she heard another sound to her left. She kept going. The trees gradually parted, and a clearing appeared.
Elena stopped. Someone stood in the center—a man with his back to her. He was tall, dressed entirely in black, his dark hair falling slightly over his neck. Elena remained motionless. She had never seen him before, yet a strange sense of familiarity passed through her body. The man slowly raised his head.
“Who are you?”
He didn’t answer. Elena took a step.
“Can you hear me?”
The man turned his head slightly. She caught a glimpse of his profile. His face was perfectly human, handsome and cold, but there was something deeply unsettling in his gaze. At last, he turned around. Elena stepped back. His eyes were red—the same eyes as the creature’s, the same eyes that had watched her from her childhood dreams.
The man stared at her for a long moment, then spoke her name.
“Elena.”
She felt her heart constrict.
“How do you know my name?”
The man didn’t answer. He moved toward her, each step seeming to echo throughout the entire forest. Elena tried to back away, but her legs refused to move. The man stopped a few yards from her. He looked at her as if searching for something in her face, then his gaze dropped to her neck.
“You’re still wearing her pendant.”
Elena instinctively raised a hand to her chest.
“Who are you?”
He still didn’t answer.
“Do you know my mother?”
This time, something flickered in his eyes—an emotion Elena couldn’t identify. Anger, or perhaps regret.
“You mustn’t look for her.”
“Why?”
He took another step.
“Because some truths destroy those who discover them.”
Elena clenched her fists.
“I want to know what’s happening to me.”
The man remained silent. Then he whispered:
“You should have stayed hidden.”
The ground suddenly seemed to vibrate. The wind rose, and the trees began to twist. Elena stepped back.
“What do you want from me?”
The man fixed his gaze on her, and for the first time, she saw something in his eyes that looked like fear.
“It’s not me you should be afraid of.”
A growl rang out behind him. The man turned his head. Elena caught sight of an immense silhouette between the trees. It looked nothing like anything she had seen in her apartment. It was much larger, older, and more terrifying. The man looked at the creature, then turned back to Elena.
“When you wake up, trust no one.”
“Wait!”
He backed away. The forest began to disappear, and Elena felt the ground give way beneath her feet.
“Who are you?”
The man looked at her one last time. Then he answered:
“The one who will come for you.”
Elena opened her eyes abruptly and sat up in bed with a scream, breathing rapidly. The bedroom was plunged into darkness. She pressed a hand to her heart; it was beating wildly. She remained that way for several seconds. She looked at her nightstand. The pendant was still there. She slowly reached out a hand, then stopped. Something was wrong. She frowned. The pendant was no longer lying exactly as she had left it, and it was covered in a dark substance—blood. She recoiled violently, her breath catching. She looked at her hands. They were clean, but a drop of blood slowly slid across the metal. Elena didn’t dare move.
Her phone vibrated on the nightstand, making her jump. An unknown number had sent her a message. She hesitated before opening it. There was only one sentence: “Now he knows you’re awake.”
Elena stared at the screen, then looked toward the window. Behind the glass, in the street swallowed by night, two red points gleamed in the darkness.
They vanished at once.