Ethan awoke with a start, gasping for breath. His heart pounded in his chest as if trying to escape. The dream clung to him like a second skin, suffocating, pressing in from all sides. He blinked, disoriented, staring at the ceiling of his darkened bedroom. His sheets were tangled around him, drenched in sweat, and for a moment, he didn't know where he was—only that Lila was there, somewhere close.
The dream had been so vivid. Too vivid.
He swallowed hard and forced himself to sit up, wiping his damp forehead with the back of his hand. The room felt colder than usual, as if some unseen presence had leeched the warmth from the air. His skin prickled with unease, the kind that lingered long after waking from a nightmare. But this... this felt like more than a dream. It felt like a warning.
In the dream, Lila had stood in the middle of a forest. Dark mist curled through the trees, wrapping around her like tendrils of shadow. Her lips moved, but the words she spoke were unfamiliar, some strange incantation in a language Ethan couldn't place. He had watched from a distance, unable to move, frozen in place by some invisible force.
As she whispered, the trees around her began to change, their once vibrant green leaves shriveling and turning to ash. The bark cracked, rotting from the inside out, and the ground beneath her feet seemed to die, the grass withering away into dry, brittle husks. But it was her eyes—those glowing, unnatural eyes—that haunted him the most. They had locked onto him, piercing through the fog, burning into his soul as if she could see straight through him. There was something predatory in her gaze, something ancient and terrifying, and it chilled him to the bone.
"Ethan," she had whispered, her voice soft but carrying a weight that made his entire body tremble. "You can't escape."
That was when the forest had started to close in on him. The trees, twisted and decayed, bent toward him as if alive, their branches stretching out like skeletal hands, reaching for him. No matter how hard he tried to move, his legs wouldn't respond. He was trapped, rooted to the spot, watching as Lila's figure grew larger, her voice louder, more insistent.
And then... he woke up.
Ethan shivered, rubbing his arms to chase away the lingering cold. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and stood, padding barefoot to the window. Outside, the city was still, the streets below empty in the dead of night. The faint glow of streetlights cast long shadows on the sidewalk, but there was no movement, no sound beyond the occasional distant hum of traffic.
He pressed a hand to the window, feeling the cool glass beneath his fingertips. He couldn't shake the feeling that someone—or something—was watching him. Lila's presence felt like a dark cloud hanging over him, even now, miles away from her. The dream had been so real, too real. His logical mind tried to tell him it was just his imagination, the result of the tension and fear she'd stirred in him since their date.
But deep down, Ethan knew better.
Lila wasn't like anyone he'd ever met. From the moment they had crossed paths, there had been something off about her. At first, it had been intriguing—her allure, her mystery—but now, it felt like that intrigue had twisted into something dangerous. The more he learned about her, the more he realized he didn't want to know.
He turned away from the window and ran a hand through his hair, his fingers trembling. Sleep wasn't going to come easily tonight, that much was clear. He could still hear the sound of her voice in his head, that low, melodic chant echoing in the corners of his mind. It made his skin crawl.
The boundaries between reality and whatever strange, dark world Lila existed in were blurring. He felt it, even now, in the quiet of his apartment. The rational part of him wanted to dismiss the dream as just that—a nightmare, nothing more. But a deeper part of him, the part that had seen the forum, that had uncovered the disturbing truths about her online group, knew there was more to this than he was willing to admit.
Ethan glanced at the clock. It was barely 3 a.m., but sleep wasn't an option anymore. He paced the room, his thoughts spiraling. Maybe Mason was right. Maybe he was overreacting, letting his paranoia get the best of him. But every instinct he had told him otherwise.
Something was wrong with Lila. Very wrong.
His phone buzzed on the nightstand, the sound startling him out of his thoughts. He hesitated before picking it up, a knot of dread forming in his stomach. Who would be messaging him at this hour? His thumb hovered over the screen before he tapped the notification, revealing a new message from an unknown number.
A single sentence stared back at him, sending a chill straight through his core.
"Sleep well, Ethan?"
For a moment, he just stared at the screen, his mind racing. He didn't need to ask who it was. The sick feeling in his gut told him everything he needed to know.
It was Lila.
Ethan's breath quickened as the weight of the message settled in. How could she have known? How could she possibly have known about the dream, about the way he had bolted awake, drenched in sweat?
The phone buzzed again, another message appearing beneath the first.
"There's so much more to learn. Don't fight it."
His hand shook as he set the phone down, backing away from it like it was something poisonous. He couldn't do this. He couldn't let her worm her way any deeper into his life. Whatever she was playing at, whatever twisted game this was, he had to find a way out.
But even as he tried to push the thoughts away, a part of him wondered—was it already too late?
Ethan's reflection stared back at him in the mirror across the room, his pale face barely recognizable. His eyes were wide with fear, his body tense, every muscle coiled like a spring ready to snap.
He couldn't escape the feeling that Lila was everywhere, her presence creeping into the corners of his mind, into the very fabric of his reality. He knew, deep down, that she wasn't done with him.
Not by a long shot.
Ethan sank back onto the edge of the bed, his heart still pounding. Whatever was happening, whatever Lila was, he had to figure it out. He couldn't keep running from the shadows she cast.
The lines between nightmare and waking life were blurring, and Ethan wasn't sure how much longer he could hold on to what was real.
But one thing was certain: Lila had him in her sights.
And she wasn't letting go.