The Dream

The Dream
I had thought silence was safety. That quiet meant nothing could reach me. But that night, the silence grew teeth.

I was dozing in the corner of the small cabin Mr. Tracy had found for us, a place hidden deep enough in the woods that even the air felt secret. My body ached with exhaustion, yet sleep came in broken pieces. Every time I drifted off, the mark on my arm pulsed faintly, like it was tugging me back to some invisible thread I could not name.

I dreamed of whispers. Not loud enough to be voices, but layered, soft, carried through like echoes of conversations I had never had. Words like broken glass. I could not piece them together. I saw shadows of people I did not know—faces pressed close, lips moving, eyes burning with a recognition that made my stomach twist. And then, always, the mark burning like a coal against my skin.

I jerked awake. My chest was damp with sweat, and the room was dark. Mr. Tracy was still on the other side of the cabin, his gun across his lap even in sleep, like his body knew no peace. Outside, the night hummed with its endless insects and far-off cries of birds.

But underneath that… something else.

A crunch. Leaves breaking beneath a deliberate step.

My stomach folded in on itself. I sat still, willing myself to believe it was an animal. A deer. Even a wolf. Anything but what my instincts told me. The mark throbbed once, a sharp warning.

I leaned toward Mr. Tracy. My whisper scraped out like sand.
“Someone’s here.”

His eyes opened instantly. That was the thing about him—sleep never dulled his senses. He didn’t waste words. His head tilted slightly, like he too was listening. Another crunch, heavier this time. Closer.

He moved in a blur, gun raised, his free hand pushing me back gently but firmly. His face was unreadable, but his jaw tightened. “Stay down.”

I crouched low, my breath loud in my ears. My whole body screamed at me to move, to run, but my legs felt carved from stone.

The first shadow appeared at the window. A man’s frame. Then another.

They had found me.

I clutched my arm as the mark seared hotter, the skin glowing faintly through my sleeve. Not bright enough to light the room, but bright enough that when I glanced down, I could see it, and terror coiled deep inside me.

The door shook under the first hit. Mr. Tracy didn’t hesitate. He fired once, the sound splitting the night like a jagged crack. I covered my ears, biting down on a scream.

But there were more of them. I could hear voices now, low commands from the outside. Calm. Too calm. They weren’t afraid of one man with a gun.

The door rattled again, harder this time. A groan of wood giving way.

Mr. Tracy’s hand shot out, grabbing my wrist. “If I tell you to run, Ree, you run and don’t stop. Do you understand me?”

“No.” The word came out without my permission. “I can’t leave you.”

His eyes flicked to me, sharp, almost angry, but beneath it I caught something else—fear. Not of them. For me.

The mark on my arm flared again, but this time, something shifted. It wasn’t just pain. It was heat spreading into my veins, rushing like a second heartbeat. My chest rose and fell too quickly, panic tangling with something I couldn’t explain.

The door burst inward. Splinters sprayed across the room.

Three men stormed in first, dressed in dark clothes that clung to their bodies like shadows. Their eyes found me instantly.

“There,” one said, his voice rough with triumph.

Mr. Tracy fired again, and one of them crumpled, but the others barely flinched. They moved too smoothly, too deliberately, like hunters who had cornered prey a thousand times before.

I pressed back against the wall, heart hammering, and then—

The whispers.

They flooded me so suddenly I gasped. Not from the room. From inside my head. Hundreds of voices, overlapping, like I was standing in the middle of a crowd. Words in languages I didn’t know, some soft, some furious, some crying. My mark burned so hot I thought my skin would split.

I clamped my hand over it, choking back a sob.

The attackers hesitated for half a second. Their eyes flicked to the faint light under my sleeve.

“She’s awakening,” one of them muttered.

Awakening. The word lodged in my mind like a thorn.

Mr. Tracy shoved me toward the back door, his voice harsh. “Run, Ree!”

I stumbled, torn between obeying and collapsing under the weight of the whispers. My body felt both heavy and too light, like I was standing in two places at once. I heard a scream—except it wasn’t mine. It was younger, a girl’s, echoing through me as if pulled from a memory that wasn’t mine.

“Move!” Mr. Tracy roared.

I ran. My feet barely touched the floorboards as I tore through the back door into the night. Branches slapped at my arms. The forest swallowed me whole.

Behind me, gunfire cracked again, followed by shouts. The voices inside my head twisted, overlapping with the chaos of the real world. I couldn’t separate them. I tripped once, knees crashing into the dirt, but the mark burned hotter, forcing me back to my feet.

Run. Run. Run.

I didn’t know where I was going. The woods looked endless, every tree a mirror of the one before it. But the whispers grew louder, tugging me like a rope toward some unseen place. My lungs screamed, but I couldn’t stop.

Then I felt it. A hand, cold and strong, grabbed my arm from behind.

I screamed, twisting, my eyes locking onto a face half-hidden by shadows. One of them had caught me.

But before he could drag me back, the mark on my arm erupted. Light burst out, blinding, searing through the night. The man cried out, stumbling backward, his grip tearing away from me like he’d touched fire.

I stared down at my arm in horror. The glow didn’t fade. It pulsed outward, rippling like waves, and for a moment I swore the trees themselves bent toward it.

The man’s eyes widened. Not with anger. With fear.

“She’s not ready,” he hissed, then vanished into the dark.

Whrn I woke up, my chest was heaving. My whole body trembled, and my hands shook .

Was this just a dream or was what I carried inside me m more dangerous than I thought?