The book arrived on a Tuesday morning.
No footsteps.
No shadow passing my window.
Just a sudden thump on my doormat—soft, but heavy enough to make my heart jump.
I wasn't expecting anything.
I don't order surprises.
And I definitely don't receive gifts from strangers.
But when I opened the door, there it was.
A book.
Thick.
Bound in dark leather.
Cold as if it had spent the night buried in snow.
There was no title.
No embossing.
No hint of who sent it or why.
It felt… deliberate.
Like something—or someone—had placed it there with intent.
Curiosity tugged at me. I carried it inside and opened it, expecting old ink or dusty pages.
Nothing.
The entire book was blank.
Page after page after page—empty, untouched, waiting.
It should've been harmless.
But something about the silence inside it made my skin react as if it had pressed a finger against my spine.
I closed it.
Set it on the table.
Walked away.
But the next morning, the world changed.
There was writing where there had been none.
Ink—black, elegant, too neat to be rushed—filled the first chapter.
A chapter about me.
My childhood.
My secrets.
The scar above my collarbone.
The lullaby I hum when I can't sleep.
Things I've never told anyone.
My breath caught when I reached the last line.
"At sunset today, she will meet the man who has waited a lifetime to find her."
I laughed.
What else could I do?
Books don't predict your day.
But sunset came… and so did he.
I felt him before I saw him—
a strange pull in my chest, like something inside me had just recognized its missing piece.
When our eyes met, the world went unnervingly quiet.
He stood in front of me with ocean-grey eyes that held too much emotion for someone I had never met.
He looked at me like he'd been searching for years.
Like he knew exactly who I was.
His lips parted. His voice was soft, breathy, unsteady.
"Elara…"
The way he said my name didn't sound like a stranger testing the syllables.
It sounded like someone remembering a prayer.
Someone who had whispered it too many times in the dark.
Heat curled through my chest. Not attraction.
Recognition.
A déjà vu so strong it almost knocked me off balance.
I didn't know him.
But my soul reacted as if I did.
Then his gaze dropped to the book in my hands.
The moment his eyes landed on it, the pages shivered.
A single ripple—like breath moving through paper.
Fresh ink bled across the open page, forming new words right in front of us.
His hand tightened at his side.
His chest rose slowly, painfully, as if he already knew what it would say.
I looked down.
New sentences appeared—curling, blooming, alive.
Words neither of us had written.
Words about us.
And for the first time, something inside me whispered a truth I didn't want to believe:
The book didn't choose me by accident.
It was remembering something…
or someone.
And the man standing in front of me looked like he already knew exactly what it was going to reveal next.