Chapter 25: The Girl In The Vision

Chapter 25: The Girl in the Vision

The vision came very late at night.

Lena was dreaming normal things, scattered images that didn't make sense, when everything shifted.

She stood in a vast open space that seemed to stretch endlessly in every direction. There were no walls, no ceiling, no ground that she could properly see.

It was just space flooded with silver light so bright it should have hurt to look at but somehow didn't.

A girl stood at the center of it all.

Her arms were raised above her head, her palms facing upward. Her eyes closed. She looked peaceful, like she was meditating or praying or waiting for something.

Her skin was covered in symbols.

They started at her wrists and climbed up her arms in intricate patterns, glowing silver against her skin.

Dozens of them, maybe hundreds, each one distinct and beautiful.

Three wolves circled her slowly.

One was silver, one gold, one with eyes the color of deep forest green. They moved in perfect synchronization, their paws silent, their attention fixed entirely on the girl at the center.

The girl's head tilted slightly like she could sense Lena watching.

Then she turned.

Lena saw her face and the breath left her lungs.

It was her own.

Her face, her features, her hair. But it was different somehow. It was older maybe, or just changed in ways she couldn't articulate. The eyes that looked back at her glowed faintly silver and her expression was calm in a way Lena had never felt in her entire life.

The vision shattered.

Lena woke up gasping, her whole body jerking upright in bed. Her heart was pounding and her hands were shaking and she couldn't seem to catch her breath properly.

She sat there in the darkness for a long time, unable to move, unable to think about anything except what she'd just seen.

For the first time the visions weren't showing her something external. They weren't warnings about the shadow or the forest or the missing students.

They were showing her something she was going to become or maybe something she already was.

The thought terrified her more than anything else had.

Morning came too quickly. Lena got ready for school moving like a ghost.

She was hollowed and distracted.

She barely remembered eating breakfast or getting into Caleb's car or walking through the front doors of Crescent Ridge.

Everything felt distant and unreal.

She couldn't look at Ethan without seeing the silver wolf circling that glowing figure.

She also couldn't look at Liam without seeing the golden one.

She couldn't look at Caleb without seeing green eyes watching her from the vision.

She knew without being told which wolf belonged to which man.

First period passed in a blur. So did second. By third period Lena realized she hadn't absorbed a single thing from either class.

Liam found her between classes looking more concerned than she'd ever seen him.

“What happened?” he asked quietly, falling into step beside her.

“Nothing.”

“Liar.” His voice was gentle. “You look like you haven't slept in days.”

“I'm fine.”

Liam didn't push but he stayed close for the rest of the morning, orbiting with that quiet attentiveness she was starting to rely on against her better judgment. Every time she glanced up he was there.

Between fourth and fifth period Ethan caught her alone in the hallway.

As usual , he was silent but he studied her face with those sharp gray eyes that seemed to see everything.

Lena tried to look away but found she couldn't.

“Whatever you saw,” he said finally, his voice low, “write it down before you lose the details. Visions fade faster than normal memories.”

Lena stared at him for a second too long, caught off guard by the concern underneath his words.

“Okay,”she managed.

Ethan nodded once and walked away, leaving her standing in the hallway trying to process the fact that he cared enough to tell her that.

The rest of the day dragged. Lena went through the motions of attending class and taking notes and pretending everything was normal. But inside she felt fractured, like the vision had cracked something open and now she couldn't put it back together.

After school Caleb was waiting by his car as usual. They got in without speaking and he pulled out of the parking lot, taking their normal route home.

They were halfway there when he spoke.

“Have you seen yourself in a vision yet?”

The question was quiet, almost casual, but it hit Lena like a physical blow.

She stopped walking. They'd gotten out of the car and were heading toward the house but now she just stood frozen on the driveway.

Caleb turned to look at her and his expression changed immediately. He already knew the answer just from looking at her face.

“When?” he asked.

“Last night.”

He nodded slowly, not surprised at all. He looked like he'd just gotten confirmation of something he'd been expecting.

“What did you see?”

Lena wrapped her arms around herself even though it wasn't cold. “Me. Standing in light with symbols all over my arms. And three wolves circling me.”

Caleb was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke his voice was careful. “Did you recognize the wolves?”

“Yes.”

He exhaled slowly and turned to continue walking toward the house. Lena followed, her legs feeling unsteady.

They walked the rest of the way in silence. Not the tense hostile silence from before but something different. The silence of two people standing at the edge of something enormous that neither of them was ready to name.

When they reached the front door Caleb paused with his hand on the handle.

“It's going to get harder from here,” he said quietly without looking at her. “Once you start seeing yourself in the visions, once you understand what you're becoming, there's no going back to not knowing.”

“I don't want to go back,” Lena said, surprised by how true it was. “I want to understand.”

Caleb finally looked at her and something in his expression softened slightly. “Then write everything down. Every detail, every symbol, every feeling. Don't let any of it fade.”

He went inside without waiting for a response.

Lena stood on the porch for another moment, then followed him in. She went straight to her room and closed the door, pulling out her notebook before she could lose her nerve.

She flipped to a new page and started writing about the vision. The silver light, the open space, the girl with her arms raised. The symbols covering her skin from wrist to shoulder. The three wolves circling slowly, endlessly, like they were guarding something precious.

She wrote about recognizing her own face, about the calm expression she'd never felt, about the way those silver-glowing eyes had looked back at her with knowing.

When she finished describing everything she could remember, Lena paused with her pen hovering ov

er the page.

Then she wrote at the top in large letters: who was I before this?

She stared at the question until her eyes began to blur.