The echo of her parents' passionate words, read just hours before, still danced in the recesses of Lysandra's mind when sleep dragged her down again, not into a placid rest, but into a whirlwind of lucid, unsettling images.
She was no longer in her bed, in the safety of Thorne Mansion. She found herself in the middle of a suffocating jungle, a thick, green labyrinth where sunlight barely filtered through the impenetrable canopy. The air was heavy, humid, laden with the scent of damp earth, decaying vegetation, and a primal fear that clung to her skin like sweat. She could hear the crunch of dry leaves under her bare feet, the constant drip of water from giant fronds, the shrill song of unknown insects, and, much closer than she would have liked, the sound of pursuit.
She was running. Running with a racing heart, burning lungs, branches scratching her skin. Behind her, menacing shadows, "bad men"—that's how her dream-mind perceived them, faceless figures but with a predatory intent that chilled her to the bone—were stalking her, their footsteps growing closer, their guttural growls echoing through the trees.
But the strangest part was the feeling of dissociation. It was she who was running, feeling the terror, the exhaustion, yet a part of her consciousness observed the scene as if she were someone else, as if she were living the memory of another's life, an ancestral memory imprinted in her blood. «It's not me,» a part of her mind thought, «but this fear, this fleeing body, also belongs to me.»
Just when she felt her strength failing her, when the breath of her pursuers seemed to burn the back of her neck and the certainty of capture was imminent, a figure emerged from the thicket, interposing himself between her and the danger. It was a man. His face was a blurry, opaque image, as if shrouded in mist or seen through a veil of time, impossible to distinguish clearly. But his presence was a wall of strength and determination. He moved with feline agility, confronting the bad men, and though Lysandra couldn't see the details of the confrontation, she felt the contained violence, the protective fury emanating from him.
And then, he spoke. Not to her, but to her pursuers, words in a language she didn't recognize, but whose tone was of unbreakable authority. And his voice… his voice. It was deep, resonant, and strangely, painfully, familiar. Where had she heard it before? The question pierced her with the same intensity as the fear.
Despite her savior's intervention, the danger hadn't passed. In a confusing turn of the dream, she found herself cornered at the edge of a precipice, the jungle at her back, the abyss at her feet. One of the bad men, who had managed to evade her protector, lunged at her. She felt a sharp pain, the sensation of falling, of losing her last breath, the cold, absolute certainty that she was about to lose her life…
She woke with a choked cry that died in her throat, her entire body convulsing. She sat bolt upright in bed, heart hammering at a thousand beats per minute, breath ragged, skin covered in a cold sweat. The darkness of her room enveloped her, but the images of the jungle, the chase, the man's blurry face, and above all, his familiar voice, were still seared into her retinas with terrifying clarity. The residual fear from the dream was so intense that she trembled from head to toe, but strangely, a sense of having been protected also lingered, a gratitude towards that male figure whose identity eluded her but whose voice resonated in the deepest part of her being.
She looked at the digital clock on her bedside table. 4:55 A.M. Her alarm was set for five. Only five minutes left.
She tried to calm her breathing, telling herself it had only been a dream, a particularly vivid nightmare, perhaps a product of the intense emotions of the past few days, of her parents' letters, of the strange energy she had felt at the museum. But the familiarity of that voice…
And then, amidst the predawn silence, as her heart still struggled to regain a normal rhythm, she heard it.
Voices.
They were coming from downstairs, from the living room area. Whispers at first, barely perceptible, but then they became a little clearer. Two voices, at least. One, undoubtedly, was Fernando's, her brother. But the other… she couldn't immediately identify it. It wasn't Ruby's, with its melodious cadence. This one was different, deeper, and although the exact words were lost in the distance and the walls of the mansion, the tone seemed to be that of a serious, perhaps even tense, conversation.
Who could be talking to Fernando in the living room at four fifty-five in the morning? Thorne Mansion, which had already revealed so many secrets, seemed to have one more in store for her in the darkest hours, just before dawn. The fear from the dream transformed into a new kind of unease, an urgent curiosity that compelled her to get out of bed, despite the trembling in her legs.