Whisper of the Forgotten by summerivera

Chapter 1 – Shadows in the Dream

Rain streaked the windows in thin, silvery rivulets, the dull patter against glass echoing through Lila Harper's apartment like the slow heartbeat of the city outside. She sat cross-legged on her bed, sketchbook open on her lap, pencil poised, yet her hand hovered uncertainly above the page. The storm had begun hours ago, leaving the streets slick and reflective, and the sky above a constant, oppressive gray. It should have made her feel cozy, tucked into her small corner of the world, but instead it made her restless.

Restless because of the feeling she couldn't name—the pull she'd been sensing for days. It was subtle at first, a whisper at the edge of perception, but tonight it had grown stronger, more insistent. She had learned long ago not to ignore these sensations; over the years, they had guided her to truths she wasn't supposed to see. Shadows that moved independently, whispers that lingered just beyond hearing, shapes that disappeared when she blinked… most people dismissed them as imagination. She could not.

Her pencil finally touched the paper, sketching lines that flowed almost of their own accord. The outline of a tall, broad-shouldered figure appeared, standing in a place she didn't recognize. She hadn't consciously imagined him, yet every stroke felt familiar, intuitive—as if her hand was remembering something her mind had yet to understand. There was a shimmer to the figure, subtle and impossible to capture with graphite, yet she tried anyway, letting the pencil mark what her eyes could not fully perceive.

And then the dream began.

She was standing in a cathedral that seemed both impossibly old and impossibly vivid. The kind of cathedral with towering stone columns, the air thick with dust and candle smoke, and stained-glass windows that fractured light into rainbow shards across the worn floor. Her bare feet pressed against cold stone, the chill seeping into her bones, but she didn't feel discomfort. The air itself seemed charged, waiting.

At the far end of the nave, he appeared. The figure from her sketches, half in shadow, half illuminated by the broken sunlight streaming through the glass. She could not see his face clearly, yet his presence was undeniable. Her chest tightened, a combination of awe and fear she had never experienced before. Every fiber of her body seemed to recognize him, to respond, even as her mind screamed that it was impossible.

"Lila," he whispered. The voice was low, melodic, and it carried a weight that made the air itself tremble. She tried to speak, to answer, but her throat felt constricted, her voice stolen. She only stood there, caught between fascination and terror, unable to step forward or retreat.

The cathedral shifted around her, morphing into an empty city street she knew yet did not recognize. Fog curled around the lampposts, curling like living tendrils, and the rain began to fall again, soft and insistent. He was there too, his movements deliberate, silent. Every step he took seemed to pull at her chest, as if some invisible tether connected them across an unfathomable divide.

Then he reached out.

The sensation of it—unreal and electric—made her gasp in her sleep, the sound echoing faintly even as the dream carried her deeper. Something ancient and alive seemed to brush against her skin, making her pulse thunder in her ears. And then she woke, sitting upright in bed, hair damp with sweat, pencil rolling across her sheets.

For a long moment, she could only stare at the ceiling, trying to convince herself it had been nothing but a dream. But she knew better. Deep down, she had always known that the world was layered, and that what most people dismissed as imagination was merely the edge of reality. She could feel a presence lingering in the corners of her room, subtle but undeniable. It was as though the air itself had shifted, holding its breath, waiting.

It's just a dream, she told herself, willing her heartbeat to slow. Just a dream.

But the warmth in her chest, the electric tug at the tips of her fingers, and the faint shimmer she could perceive at the corner of her vision argued otherwise. Something—or someone—was near, and she could not ignore it.

By mid-morning, the city had turned a glossy gray under the lingering rain, reflections from puddles mirroring the distorted shapes of umbrellas and passing cars. Lila dressed quickly in a worn hoodie and jeans, leaving her hair damp and uncombed. She had to get out of her apartment before the feeling consumed her entirely. The mundane routines of the day—classes, people, coffee—were supposed to ground her, supposed to return her to the world she knew. But she knew it would not work.

Even now, as she stepped into the streets, the pull persisted, a subtle vibration in her chest that refused to be ignored. It drew her toward the cathedral she had discovered years ago, abandoned and yet still imbued with a strange vitality. There was something about that place, something in the way shadows shifted across the broken floor, that had always called to her. And now, more than ever, she could not resist.

The cathedral's doors were warped with age, ivy crawling up the stone like dark veins. Inside, the air smelled of dust, candle wax, and something older, almost metallic, that made her stomach twist. Light from the stained-glass windows fractured across the cracked floor, casting kaleidoscopic shadows that danced faintly in the corners of her vision. Lila knelt on the cold stone, sketchbook open, pencil poised. Lines flowed across the page, forming shapes she did not consciously plan, yet they felt familiar, inevitable.

A whisper brushed across her ear, soft and intimate: "Lila."

Her breath caught. She spun in place, eyes wide, but the cathedral appeared empty. Only the faint pattern of rainbow light moved across the stone beneath her, broken and shifting.

Impossible, she thought. I'm imagining things.

But she was not imagining. There was a weight in the air, a presence that made her fingers tingle and her heart lurch. A shimmer appeared at the edge of her vision, subtle at first, then more defined. And suddenly, there he was—tall, impossibly still, partially obscured by shadow, yet undeniably there.

"You shouldn't be here," he said, voice calm, resonant, and filled with a strange authority that made her body instinctively tense.

"I… I wasn't doing anything wrong," Lila stammered. Her voice sounded small, almost childlike in the cavernous space.

"You are in danger," he said. "And you don't even know it yet."

Her pulse surged. There was something intoxicating about him, something that made fear and fascination curl together like fire and ice in her chest. She wanted to step forward, to close the distance, but a strange barrier held her back, as if the air itself resisted the motion.

Lila's chest tightened as the words hung in the air, heavy and impossible. Her gaze was locked on him, on the figure that should not have existed in the realm of the living. Every instinct screamed at her to run, to escape the cathedral and return to the safety of the ordinary world. And yet, another part of her—the part she had long suppressed—urged her to stay. To see him. To understand him.

"You shouldn't exist here," she whispered, voice trembling despite her attempt at composure. "Who… what are you?"

He tilted his head slightly, the motion fluid and deliberate. "Someone bound by rules you cannot yet comprehend," he said softly. His eyes, dark and impossibly deep, seemed to pierce through her, reading not just her face but her thoughts, her fears, her secret desires. Lila felt her stomach twist. There was a weight to his gaze, an almost magnetic pull that made her knees weak.

"I… I don't understand," she admitted, her voice barely audible. She took a hesitant step forward, drawn despite herself. "Why are you here? Why… me?"

Kael's lips curved faintly in a shadow of a smile, though his expression remained largely unreadable. "Because you can see me. Because you have always been able to," he said. "And because every time I am near you, I am reminded of what I've lost… and what I cannot have."

The words struck her in a way that made her chest ache. She could feel the subtle pull again, a force that seemed to thread through the air between them, wrapping around her heart, tugging at it. She wanted to reach out, to close the distance between them, yet fear held her back. This was wrong. Impossible. Dangerous. And yet… irresistible.

"You're saying I'm… dangerous?" she asked cautiously, a tremor in her voice betraying her fear.

Kael shook his head slowly. "Not you. Not exactly. But proximity… attention… every glance, every step closer, carries consequences neither of us are ready to face. The world I inhabit does not forgive curiosity."

Her breath hitched. "The world you inhabit…? You mean… you're not human."

His gaze softened just slightly, the first crack in the inscrutable mask he wore. "No," he admitted, his voice low and deliberate. "I am not human. And that is why our connection… why this… is dangerous."

The words should have frightened her more, but they didn't. Instead, her pulse quickened, her skin tingling with anticipation. Fear was there, yes, but it was tangled with something else—an unfamiliar, electric longing she could not ignore. Her fingers twitched, wanting to reach toward him, to bridge the impossible gap, yet she stopped herself, unwilling to make a misstep.

He stepped closer, the movement subtle, measured. Lila's breath caught in her throat. Every inch he closed between them seemed to magnify the intensity in the room, compressing the space into something intimate, charged, alive.

"You shouldn't feel this," he murmured, almost as if reading her thoughts. "And yet, you do. You are bound to it, whether you like it or not."

"I… I don't know if I want it," she admitted honestly, though part of her already knew that it was too late. She did want it. Her pulse betrayed her, her stomach twisted with longing, her entire body alert and alive in ways it had never been before.

Kael's eyes lingered on hers, the intensity unbroken. There was a faint shimmer around him, subtle and almost imperceptible, but it made her senses reel. The air between them felt electric, almost alive, as if every molecule vibrated with anticipation. He moved closer again, slow, deliberate, careful—not enough to touch her, but enough that she could feel the pull of his presence, strong and undeniable.

"You must be careful," he said, voice dropping to a whisper. "Curiosity has a way of ignoring warnings, and desire… well, desire can be fatal when it treads in forbidden territory."

Lila's fingers twitched again, hovering in the space between them, trembling. She wanted to touch him. She wanted to know if the heat she felt was real or imagined. She wanted to step into danger, just to be near him. Every rational thought screamed at her to pull back, yet her body betrayed her, leaning slightly forward as if drawn by an invisible thread.

"You… you shouldn't speak like that," she whispered, voice barely audible. "You're… dangerous. And I—I should leave."

Kael's expression softened further, the mask of centuries-old restraint cracking in the faintest way. "And yet you stay," he said softly. "Even knowing the risk."

Her heartbeat thundered in her ears. "I… I don't know why," she admitted. "I can't explain it."

"You don't need to," he said, almost kindly, though the warning in his tone was unmistakable. "Some forces are ancient. Some bonds cannot be broken. You feel them, even if you do not yet understand them. That is why you must be cautious… and why you cannot leave entirely."

A shiver ran down her spine. She wanted to run, and yet another part of her wanted nothing more than to step forward, to bridge the space, to feel the pull, to touch him, to know him. And yet she didn't. She stayed frozen, caught in the tension between fear and fascination, between longing and reason.

Then, at the corner of her vision, she felt it—a shift in the shadows, subtle yet unmistakable. A darker movement, separate from him, a presence that did not belong. Her pulse quickened again, fear spiking through her chest.

Kael noticed immediately. His stance shifted, protective, precise. "Go," he said sharply, voice cutting through the cathedral like steel. "Before it sees you."

"What? What—" Lila began, but the motion of his hand toward the shadow, the ripple in the air that made her stomach lurch, silenced her. The presence recoiled, as if startled, and then was gone, leaving only the faintest trace of cold behind.

Lila's breath came in shallow gasps. Her hands trembled, gripping her sketchbook tightly. "What… what was that?"

"Something that shouldn't be near you," Kael said, voice low, tense. "Something that could harm you. That is why I cannot allow carelessness. That is why you must be careful. Every moment near me carries risk."

Lila's gaze met his, wide and unsteady. Fear, fascination, and a heat she could not name coiled in her chest. "I… I don't know if I can be careful," she admitted, whispering the truth she did not fully understand herself.

Kael's gaze softened slightly, shadowed eyes lingering on her. "Then you will learn," he said, voice dropping to a near whisper, "what it means to be drawn into a world beyond your understanding."

The cathedral seemed to hold its breath around them. Every sound, every shadow, every shift of light felt amplified, charged with a strange energy. Lila's stomach tightened, and she realized that she had crossed a threshold she could never return from.

Her pulse thundered, her body alert, every nerve ending alive with the awareness of him, of the danger, of the impossible allure. She wanted to speak, to ask him everything, to know everything. And yet the words died on her lips, leaving only the echo of his presence lingering in the air between them.