The room was dark except for the phone.
A pale rectangle of light hovered inches from his face, painting the ceiling in shifting blues and whites as his thumb moved in tired, automatic motions. Up. Up again. A video. A headline. A comment thread arguing about something that would not matter tomorrow.
He told himself he would stop after the next one.
He always did.
The clock on his nightstand glowed 1:47 a.m. in dull red numbers. Too late again. His eyes burned, dry and heavy, but his mind refused to settle. Every time he locked the screen, a restless pressure bloomed behind his ribs, an unease he could not name, only escape by scrolling deeper.
Another swipe.
Someone laughing. Someone dying. Someone selling something. Someone angry about something else.
The world compressed into a glass slab.
He exhaled slowly through his nose and shifted onto his side, the sheets whispering against his skin. The phone followed, hovering like a tether he could not cut. His heart thumped steadily, unremarkable and reliable, something he had never once questioned.
Until it skipped.
He frowned.
It was not pain at first. Just a strange, hollow misfire, like a step taken on a stair that was not there. His thumb paused mid-scroll.
"What?" he murmured, his voice rough with disuse.
Another beat came too fast. Then another too slow.
The phone slipped slightly in his hand as a sudden heat bloomed in his chest, sharp and spreading, radiating up into his throat and down his left arm. His breath hitched, shallow and wrong, like his lungs had forgotten the order of things.
The screen kept playing.
Someone shouting in a video. A laugh track. A cut to black.
His vision narrowed at the edges, the room dimming despite the phone's glare. Panic flared, not dramatic and not cinematic, just raw and animal.
This is not right.
He tried to sit up.
His body refused.
The phone fell from his fingers and struck the mattress with a soft, stupid sound, still glowing and still alive. He rolled onto his back, chest tightening as if invisible hands were closing around his heart.
"Hey," he gasped, the word barely forming. There was no one to hear it anyway.
His heartbeat stuttered again. Then again.
Each one weaker than the last.
The ceiling blurred. The light fractured. His thoughts scattered, no grand memories flashing before his eyes, only fragments. Unfinished messages. A show he meant to watch. An alarm he had set for the morning.
I will sleep after this, he had thought.
His last breath left him in a shaky exhale, more confused than afraid.
The phone's screen finally dimmed.
The room went dark.
And somewhere far beyond the quiet apartment, rain began to fall.
He woke to the sound of rain.
At first, he thought it was still a dream, the lingering echo of the storm that had crept into his final moments of sleep. The sensation was wrong, though. Too cold. Too sharp. Rain did not feel like this indoors.
His eyes opened.
Gray sky filled his vision.
Not a ceiling. Not familiar walls. Just a heavy blanket of cloud pressing low, the air thick with mist and the smell of wet earth. He sucked in a breath and coughed as cold air burned down his throat.
He was lying on asphalt.
That realization came slowly, piece by piece. The rough texture beneath his palms. The faint ache in his shoulder. The chill seeping through his clothes. He pushed himself upright in a rush of panic and nearly fell again when dizziness slammed into him.
"No," he whispered hoarsely. "No, no, no."
This made no sense.
Minutes ago, he had been in bed. His bed. In the dark, with a phone slipping from his hand and a weight crushing his chest. He remembered that clearly. Too clearly. The confusion did not blur it. If anything, it made it sharper.
He looked down at himself.
Same clothes. Same hands. His fingers trembled as he flexed them, half-expecting them not to respond. Everything worked. Everything felt solid.
Except for where he was.
The road stretched in both directions, empty and slick with rain, bordered by towering trees that crowded close like silent witnesses. Moss clung to their trunks, thick and vivid green. Fog curled between them, swallowing the distance.
There were no buildings. No cars. No lights.
Just forest and road and rain.
His breath quickened. He pressed a hand to his chest, expecting pain. There was none. His heart beat steadily, strong and even, as if nothing had ever gone wrong.
"I died," he muttered.
The words sounded ridiculous in the open air. Saying them did not make them less true. He remembered the misfiring heartbeat. The heat. The fading light. That had not been sleep.
That had been the end.
And yet here he was.
A sharp laugh escaped him, brittle and unsteady. "Great. Perfect. I finally get some rest and wake up in the middle of nowhere."
His gaze dropped again, this time noticing the weight on his shoulders. A backpack. Black, worn, and unfamiliar. He slid it off and stared at it as if it might explain everything.
Inside were clothes. A hoodie. Jeans. Socks. Practical things. No phone. No wallet. No identification. Nothing personal.
Just supplies.
The realization sent a chill deeper than the rain.
Someone had prepared this.
A strange pressure stirred in his chest, not pain, but something heavier. A sense of wrongness layered with something else. Recognition. Faint, distant, like a half-remembered dream.
He knew this place.
The thought made his stomach twist.
"I have never been here," he said aloud, firm, as if the road might argue with him. "I would remember this."
But even as he said it, his eyes tracked the trees, the curve of the road, the way the forest seemed to close in. A name hovered just out of reach, pressing against the inside of his skull.
Forks.
The word surfaced unbidden.
He froze.
His breath fogged the air as he whispered it again. "Forks."
The name felt heavy. Loaded. Not dangerous exactly, but important. Like a door he had seen once, long ago, in a story he had not meant to remember.
He squeezed his eyes shut.
This was insane. Hallucination. Shock. Some kind of near-death fantasy his brain had cooked up to cope. That explanation was thin, but it was better than the alternatives.
Standing still was not helping.
After what felt like an eternity of staring at the road, he slung the backpack back over his shoulders. The weight grounded him, just a little. If nothing else, roads led somewhere. Towns had people. Signs. Answers.
He turned and began to walk.
Each step felt unreal at first, like moving through a scene rather than the world itself. Rain soaked into his hair, ran down the back of his neck. The cold seeped into his bones, undeniable and sharp.
Real enough.
As he walked, the fog thinned, and a green road sign emerged ahead, its white lettering blurred by rain. His pace slowed. His heart picked up.
When he reached it, he stared.
Forks17 miles
He laughed again, softer this time. Not hysterical. Not relieved. Just tired.
"Of course," he murmured.
Whatever this was, dream or second life or something far stranger, it had given him a direction.
He squared his shoulders and continued down the road toward the town he somehow knew.
Toward answers.
Toward Forks.
The miles did not pass the way he expected them to.
At first, he thought seventeen miles was manageable. A long walk, yes, but not impossible. He had walked farther before. He had done worse things on less sleep.
That confidence faded quickly.
The road stretched on without mercy, winding through endless forest. The rain never fully stopped. It softened, thickened, then returned again, soaking his clothes until the cold felt stitched into his skin. His boots grew heavy with water. His legs began to ache, then burn.
His breath came harder with every mile.
He slowed. Then slowed again.
By the time the trees began to blur at the edges of his vision, he had stopped checking the distance altogether. His thoughts tangled, looping back on themselves. Bed. Road. Forks. Bed again. None of it connected.
He stumbled.
The world tilted sharply, and he barely caught himself before he went down. His hand slapped against a tree trunk, slick with moss, and he clung to it, chest heaving.
"Okay," he whispered between breaths. "Okay."
His heart pounded too fast now. Each inhale felt shallow, unsatisfying, like the air was thinner than it should have been. Black spots crept into his vision.
He sagged against the tree and slid down until he was sitting on the damp ground, head bowed. Rain dripped from his hair, pattering softly against leaves and asphalt.
Do not pass out.Do not pass out here.
He focused on breathing. In. Out. Slow. Counted them. Lost track. Started again.
That was when he heard it.
A sound, faint at first. Not the wind. Not rain.
Movement.
His head snapped up.
The forest to his left rustled, leaves shifting where no wind reached. Branches flexed and settled, heavy and deliberate. Whatever was moving did not crash through the undergrowth. It slid through it.
Controlled.
His pulse spiked.
"Hello?" he called, immediately regretting it.
The sound stopped.
Silence pressed in, thick and unnatural. Even the rain seemed quieter, as if listening.
He strained his eyes, scanning the trees. Shadows layered over shadows, trunks blurring into one another. He could not see anything. No shape. No eyes. Nothing that made sense.
Then another sound came from deeper in the forest.
A footstep.
Slow. Heavy. Close enough that his skin prickled.
His breath caught in his throat. He pushed himself upright on shaking legs, backing away from the tree until his heel met the edge of the road. His hands curled into fists, useless and empty.
"Someone there?" His voice cracked.
No answer.
The forest shifted again. Something moved parallel to him now, pacing his position just out of sight. Leaves crunched softly, then stilled. A low sound followed, almost a breath, too deep to be the wind.
He swallowed hard.
This place knew him.
The thought came unbidden, sharp and wrong. His head throbbed as that strange familiarity flared again, stronger this time. The sense that he had walked into a story that did not belong to him, yet somehow did.
His legs trembled. Exhaustion crashed over him all at once, heavy and crushing. The ground seemed to tilt again, his vision darkening at the edges.
"Not like this," he whispered.
The forest answered with another quiet movement.
He forced himself forward, dragging one foot after the other, staying on the asphalt as if it were the only thing anchoring him to the world. Whatever watched from the trees did not follow. The road was a boundary. He could feel it in his bones.
Behind him, the forest listened.
A low hum reached his ears.
At first, he thought it was his blood rushing, the roar of his pulse drowning everything else. Then the sound grew steadier, deeper, cutting through the rain.
An engine.
He lifted his head, blinking hard as his vision swam. Far down the road, a pair of headlights pierced the fog, pale and unreal, drifting toward him through the mist.
A car.
Relief surged so fast it made his chest ache. He tried to raise an arm. Tried to shout. His body refused to obey, strength draining away as if pulled from him.
The lights grew brighter.
Closer.
The forest fell silent.
The last thing he saw was the glow of headlights washing over the wet road, stretching toward him like an outstretched hand.
Then the world went dark.