Chapter 9 up
“Nyla… wait—”
Clark jolted awake, his breath coming in ragged gasps.
Sweat soaked his temples, his chest rising and falling as if he had just run from something unseen. The room was dark, lit only by the dim glow of a bedside lamp in the corner. The sheets were tangled, the left side of the bed empty—empty in a way that hurt.
He turned instinctively.
No Nyla.
Only silence.
Clark dragged a hand roughly over his face, trying to shake off the remnants of the dream that still clung vividly to his mind. In it, Nyla stood at the doorway, her face pale, her eyes hollow. He called out, begged, shouted—but Clark stood frozen, just as he had on the day he let her go.
And when Nyla stepped away, the floor beneath her feet collapsed.
Clark woke just before her body vanished into the darkness.
“It was just a dream,” he muttered softly, more an attempt to calm himself than a statement of fact.
But the tightness in his chest didn’t fade.
He got out of bed and walked to the window. Outside, the city slept. Streetlights cast long reflections across wet asphalt. Clark stared at his own reflection in the glass—sunken eyes, a clenched jaw, the face of a man slowly losing control of his own thoughts.
Three nights in a row.
Three nights of the same dream, each ending differently, yet always carrying the same guilt.
“Nyla…”
The name slipped from his lips without him realizing it.
The bedroom door opened quietly.
“Clark?” Selena’s voice was drowsy. “You’re not sleeping?”
Clark turned. Selena stood in the doorway wearing thin pajamas, one hand resting protectively on her stomach.
“I woke up,” Clark replied shortly.
Selena walked closer and touched his arm. “Another nightmare?”
Clark nodded.
“You’re thinking too much about Nyla,” Selena said gently. “She chose to leave.”
That sentence should have been comforting.
For some reason, it only made Clark more uneasy.
“I told her to go,” he said quietly.
Selena paused, then offered a faint smile. “You were protecting me. And our child.”
Clark didn’t answer.
He turned back to the window. The image from his dream crept in again—Nyla’s calm face as she walked away, without looking back, without asking him to stop her.
Selena watched his back. Something had changed since Nyla left. Clark had become quiet, easily irritated, often lost in thought. The attention that should have belonged entirely to her now felt divided—shared with the shadow of another woman.
“Clark,” she said more firmly. “You shouldn’t feel guilty. She scared me.”
Clark turned toward her. “Or you made me believe she was dangerous.”
The words slipped out before he could stop them.
Selena’s smile stiffened. “What do you mean?”
Clark shook his head. “Nothing. I’m just tired.”
But the seed of doubt had been planted.
The next morning, Clark left for work early. But instead of focusing, his mind kept drifting back to the past—to small things he had once dismissed.
Nyla waiting for him to eat dinner.
Nyla always apologizing first.
Nyla staying silent when blamed.
And finally—Nyla standing there with a small suitcase.
Clark clenched his fist on his desk.
“Why didn’t I stop her?” he murmured.
He opened his desk drawer and, without realizing it, pulled out a small envelope. Inside was an old photograph—him and Nyla in their first year of marriage, smiling awkwardly but happily.
His chest tightened.
He remembered how Selena had cried, pleaded, held her stomach. How those tears had made him feel like a hero.
But now, every time he recalled it, something felt… forced.
That night, the dream returned.
This time, it was different.
Clark stood in an empty house. The walls were cracked, the floor cold. At the end of the hallway, Nyla sat with her back to him.
“Nyla,” he called.
She turned slowly.
Her face wasn’t angry.
Not sad.
Just disappointed.
“You believed a lie because it was easier,” Nyla said in the dream. “And now you’re living inside it.”
Clark stepped forward. “I regret it.”
Nyla stood. “Regret doesn’t bring me home.”
Then she disappeared.
Clark woke up screaming.
“Nyla!”
Selena sat upright beside him. “What is it? Another nightmare?”
Clark covered his face with his hands. His breathing was heavy. “I… I can’t sleep.”
Selena reached for his hand, but Clark gently pulled away.
“I need some air,” he said.
He went downstairs and sat on the sofa—the one they used to sit on together. His gaze drifted to the spot where Nyla used to sit—reading, waiting, quietly present.
The guilt was real now. Not just a thought, but a weight pressing on his chest every time he remembered Nyla’s face.
“Was I wrong?” he whispered into the silence.
There was no answer.
Only the ticking of the wall clock—counting time he could never turn back.
Upstairs, Selena stood by the staircase, watching Clark from a distance. Her satisfied smile was gone, replaced by a wary gaze.
Clark’s guilt was not part of her plan.
And somehow—
that frightened her.
Clark stared at his phone. His finger hovered, trembling, over a name he hadn’t contacted in a long time.
Nyla.
He didn’t press call.