Iman hadn't spoken a word since that night.
she tried. She opened her mouth to tell Layla, to ask if she'd ever felt something... shift. But words wouldn't come. They felt too heavy, too unreal.
The stranger's eyes haunted her.
She saw them in reflections. In dream. In the dark corners of her room where light didn't reach. And every time She blinked, she felt like she was losing something-something she didn't know she had.
Her chest ached. Not like a wound, but like a warning.
The city moved around her, loud and alive, but she felt like she was walking underwater. Sounds were muffled. Faces blurred. And the air-thick with something she couldn't name.
Then came the whispers.
Soft. Distant. Her name, Spoken like a memory. She spun around in the empty hallways. Checked her phone. Nothing.
And the dreams grew darker.
She stood in a forest she'd never seen. Moonlight spilled across broken stone. A voice called to her-not in words, but in longing. She woke up gasping, drenched in sweat, heart racing like it was trying to escape.
She didn't know it yet, but Lucien was fading.
And every step she took away from him pulled him closer to the edge.