Page 96 of Aïdes the Unseen
Then, I was nowhere and I was nothing. It was the void. The place between dreams. A dark field. A depthless still. I wasn’t alone.
I couldn’t see him, not at first. But the pressure of him was there, surrounding me, closing in. When I turned, he was there—the one with no name.
He wasn’t frightening, not precisely. Yet, he didn’t blink. He spoke as if he’d rehearsed each line carved into stone as ageless as the world.
“You’re further along than you should be.”
The voice came from everywhere, all at once. I wanted to retreat. “This isn’t real.”
A dream, I told myself. I was still in a dream.
"Nothing is real. That doesn’t make it untrue.”
“What do you want from me?”
“Nothing. I already have what I want.”
“Then why follow me?”
“Because you haven’t chosen yet.”
“I’m not choosing anything,” I snapped.
The figure tilted his head.
“You always say that. And yet… you always do.”
His voice was like a book being closed over and over. Familiar. Final.
“I don’t know you.”
“You did. Once.”
“Before?”
“Before you began running from death. Before you were given a name. Before you were hers.”
“Hers?”
He stepped closer. A shadow given shape and movement. It didn’t change what I could see. His face remained a mystery, yet I knew him.
“You keep waking up thinking you belong to him.”
“Graven?” I exhaled his name.
"Is that what he’s calling himself this time?"
Something in my heart twisted. It wasn’t pain or joy, but something far more ancient.
“You’re lying.”
"No. But I am patient."
His fingers twitched as though he might reach out for me or maybe he was already touching me. That thought unsettled me even more. There was nowhere to go to escape him.
"You always bloom. You always love him. And you always die."
I shook my head. “Not this time.”
