Silas lay sprawled across his bed, one arm over his eyes, the other dangling uselessly off the mattress. His room hummed with the faint rattle of a broken ceiling fan that never quite managed to spin as fast as it should. Sweat beaded along his chest despite the open window. The moonlight outside should've cooled him, but tonight his body had decided to play furnace.
The muzzle of sleep finally clamped down on him.
And then the dream swallowed everything.
It began with a heartbeat, his own, echoing louder than it ever had before. Each thump felt like it shook the air around him. He wasn't lying in bed anymore; he was suspended in a deep violet mist that smelled faintly of rosewood and something sweeter, almost intoxicating. The world was warm. Too warm. Like he'd stepped into a bath drawn by someone who didn't understand the meaning of "lukewarm."
Shapes stirred around him. Feather-light particles drifted down like glowing dust motes, soft pink and gold. They clung to his skin, fizzing, tingling, dissolving into tiny shivers that ran up his arms and spine. His pulse leapt, confused and eager in ways he didn't understand.
A whisper brushed the back of his neck.
Not a voice. More like a story being told directly into the marrow of his bones.
He wasn't Silas anymore, not entirely. He felt himself pulled into a different body, or maybe into several bodies at once.
The first vision hit like a spark.
He was standing in an ancient courtyard paved with sun-warmed marble. Behind him stretched a ruin of half-broken columns wrapped in vines. His shadow was leaner, stronger, crowned with a wreath of shimmering laurel leaves that pulsed like living fire.
A bow hung from his hand.
A bow he knew.
Golden. Elegant. Dangerous in a way no weapon should ever be.
He didn't watch himself wield it; he felt the motion. Felt muscles pull taut, felt the string kiss fingertips, felt the arrow surge forward as though it had a will of its own. And when it struck its unseen mark, the world rippled like a pond slapped by a stone.
Love. Lust. Yearning. A thousand versions of it crashed against his chest, overwhelming, unstoppable.
The vision snapped, only for another to take its place.
This time, he was running.
Barefoot across clouds that weren't clouds at all, but soft, weightless fields of light. Wings, someone's wings, maybe his, kept brushing the sides of his arms, stirring the air around him. Laughter circled him. Not mocking laughter. Bright, mischievous, the sound of someone who always knew more than everyone else and found it endlessly entertaining.
A hand grabbed his wrist.
Small. Warm. Gentle.
But when he turned, the face was blurred, nothing but glowing eyes, swirling pink and amber, watching him as if they knew him better than he knew himself.
"You're late," the figure murmured. He didn't hear the words. He felt them vibrate inside his ribs.
Late for what? Late for whom?
The figure leaned close, and Silas felt something pressed into his palms, cool metal, shaped familiar, humming with barely hidden power.
The bow again. The same one. His fingers curled around it instinctively, possessively, as though he'd owned it long before he had ever been born.
The figure whispered one more thing, so soft he almost missed it.
"Wake up soon. You're nearly ready."
Light exploded around him.
Not blinding, more like a sunrise kissing every inch of him at once. Warm, comforting, yet full of a pressure that made his breath stutter. His skin glowed faintly through the haze, traced in intricate symbols he didn't recognize, spirals, hearts, arrows, runic curls, shifting across him like reflections on water.
And then the mist thickened and wrapped around him like silk, pulling him backward, weightless, breathless, until he dropped, straight back toward consciousness.
Silas jerked awake in his room, heart hammering, body flushed from the inside out. Moonlight shimmered across the sweat on his skin. His breath came in uneven pulses.
His palms tingled.
For a stupid, terrifying moment, he half-expected to find a golden bow lying next to him on the sheets.
He didn't. But the warmth in his chest didn't fade. The symbols, whatever they'd been, burned faintly in his memory like afterimages.
And something deep inside him whispered a promise he wasn't ready to understand.
Dreams don't come with instruction manuals, but this one had the energy of a locked door finally creaking open, showing the faintest sliver of light on the other side.
Even as he struggled to breathe normally again, the warmth wouldn't leave. It was as if Cupid himself had knocked on the walls of his mind and said:
"Soon."
...
Silas didn't just wake up the next morning; he detonated into consciousness.
His eyes snapped open like someone had poured cold water directly onto his soul. His whole body lurched, half tangled in his sheets, half dangling off the bed like a freshly dropped corpse. His hair stuck out in every direction, and for a glorious three seconds, he had no idea who he was, where he was, or why his ceiling fan sounded like a dying bird.
Then the heat hit him.
His chest felt like it was swallowing fire. His heart thumped so loudly he honestly thought his ribs were about to file a complaint. And his skin, every inch, buzzed with the ghost of those symbols from his dream, as if they'd branded him from the inside out.
He sat up slowly, pushing a hand through his hair.
"Ugh… what was that?" he muttered, voice hoarse like he'd been shouting in another life.
The dream's images clung stubbornly to him. The golden mist. The bow. The blurred figure with glowing eyes. The maddening warmth was sliding under his skin as if it owned the place.
A shiver ran up his spine.
He couldn't shake the feeling that it hadn't been a dream at all. More like… someone had dropped a myth onto his head and then politely left.
He swung his legs off the bed.
And paused.
His boxers were, well…Let's just say the night had not been kind to fabric integrity. The poor elastic did NOT sign up for mystical puberty.
Silas slapped both hands over his face.
"No. Nope. Absolutely not. I refuse to start the day like this."
He got up anyway, wobbling slightly, like a drunken flamingo, making his way toward his tiny bathroom. Every step felt strange, too aware, too sensitive, like his nerves were holding a parade without informing management.
He splashed cold water on his face, staring at his reflection.
Same Silas. Same curly hair. Same too-soft features that made older women pinch his cheeks. No glowing eyes. No bow. No magical tattoos.
But when he leaned closer…His pupils flickered.
Just once. A tiny pulse of gold.
He staggered back.
"Nope. I did NOT see that. I refuse."
His heart thumped, giving the spiritual equivalent of a wink.
Silas groaned loudly, dragging his hands down his face.
"So now I'm glowing?! Fantastic. Today's gonna be great. Wonderful. Can't wait."
He grabbed a towel, half wrapped it around himself like he was guarding state secrets, and flopped onto his bed again. He needed air. He needed clarity. He needed several gallons of ice water poured directly onto his brain.
But instead, his mind replayed the dream, the figure's hand gripping his wrist, the emotion-rich energy pulsing through him, and the voice, or whatever passed for one, whispering that he was "nearly ready."
Ready for what?
School? Puberty round two? A job as a discount Cupid knockoff?
He groaned again. His ceiling fan continued its death rattle.
Silas stared at it as if it might answer all his problems.
"Why me?"
The fan clicked twice, spun lazily, and answered him with an unhelpful rrrh-RRRHH-rhrrh.
He sighed and rolled onto his back, staring at the ceiling. The warmth in his chest still glowed, faint but persistent, like a spark waiting for fuel.
He wasn't ready. He didn't even want whatever this was, but the universe clearly had plans.
Messy, glowing, mythologically-flavored plans.
And this was only the morning.
The rest of the day was waiting outside his window, pretending to be normal.
Silas could already feel it vibrating in his bones.
A story beginning, a power stirring, a headache forming.
The mythology wasn't done with him yet, and the world would start noticing soon enough.