Tara awoke with a jolt, her body stiff and her breath caught in her throat. The world around her felt too quiet, too still. The remnants of the dream clung to her mind like fog—half-formed images, sounds that didn't make sense, a presence that felt both familiar and terrifying.

She blinked against the darkness, trying to piece it together, but the details scattered as quickly as they appeared. Was it a memory? Or just another dream?

In the dream, she had been standing in a crowded room, surrounded by voices she didn't recognize. They spoke over each other, blurred words floating in and out of reach. There was a figure at the center of it all, their face indistinct. They reached for someone—someone she couldn't place—and the scene shifted, the air thick with a strange, choking pressure.

A moment later, everything went still.Someone was lying on the ground, unmoving. A body. Her body?

Tara's pulse quickened as the fog in her mind deepened. She tried to focus, to remember what happened next, but it slipped through her fingers like water. She was always too late in the dreams. Always too late to stop what she saw.

And when she tried? When she tried to change things, to save them? Something worse always followed. Something darker, something beyond her control.

The room around her felt colder now, the air suffocating. She pulled her blanket tighter around her shoulders and closed her eyes, willing the memories—or whatever they were—to fade. But it was always the same. The fear. The faces. The feeling of helplessness.

Tara didn't know if it was her past or just another dream. And she wasn't sure which one terrified her more.