Chen Li jolted upright, his heart racing and sweat soaking his forehead. The room was dark, save for the faint sliver of moonlight that filtered through the curtains. His eyes darted around the room, half-expecting to see the figure from his dream standing in the shadows. But it was empty.
It took him several minutes to calm his breathing and convince himself that it had just been a nightmare. Yet, the vividness of the dream lingered in his mind—the figure, the forest, the oppressive silence. He could still feel the icy chill of the man's gaze, the way it seemed to pierce through him.
Unable to shake the feeling of dread, Chen Li pushed back his blankets and got out of bed. His legs felt weak, and he realized that his hands were trembling slightly. He made his way over to the painting, which now seemed even more unsettling than before.
The figure in the mist was still there, just as he had painted it. But now, in the dim light of the room, it seemed even more real. The shadowy figure felt less like a part of the painting and more like a presence lurking within it.
Chen Li shuddered and turned away from the canvas. His mind was playing tricks on him, he told himself. He was simply exhausted. But as he looked around the room, everything felt different—heavier, as if the air itself had thickened since he had awoken from the dream.
The clock on the wall showed it was barely 3 a.m., too early to do anything but too late to fall back asleep. Restless and uneasy, Chen Li decided to distract himself. He picked up his sketchbook, hoping that drawing something, anything, would take his mind off the disturbing dream.
His hand moved instinctively, sketching out simple lines, a tree here, a shadow there. But as he worked, he realized his hand was drawing the same scene—the forest, the mist, the figure. No matter how hard he tried to change it, the image that came out was always the same.
By the time the first light of dawn began to break, Chen Li had filled the entire page with a new version of the dark forest. And again, the figure stood hidden within the mist, watching him from the shadows.