The room was quiet, yet his heart pounded like a drum in his chest.

In the darkness of his mind, faint images flickered like a distant memory.

A girl smiled at him, her face blurred as though hidden behind a veil.

Her laughter, soft and familiar, echoed faintly before it was joined by others. Friends? He wasn't sure.

The sound shifted—laughter giving way to screeching tires and a deafening crash.

A truck loomed in his vision for just a moment. Sirens wailed. Shadows moved in chaos.

He felt a sharp pain in his chest, a fleeting warmth fading to coldness. Then silence.

He jolted upright, beads of sweat clinging to his forehead. The dream lingered, a heavy fog in his mind.

"Hey! You're going to be late!" His mother's voice came from downstairs, pulling him back to reality.

Still disoriented, he glanced around the room. His posters, books, and cluttered desk were where he had left them. Yet everything felt... unfamiliar.

"Just a dream," he muttered to himself, but it didn't feel like one. It felt real. Too real.

He got out of bed, shaking off the unease. His first day of high school awaited, and he didn't want to be late. But as he brushed his teeth, flashes of the dream resurfaced—the girl's smile, the crash, the sirens.

The bus ride to his new school was uneventful, yet he couldn't shake the feeling that something was out of place.

At school, the day passed like a blur. Teachers introduced themselves, students whispered about first impressions, and the protagonist tried to fit into this new routine.

But when he glanced out the window during a class, he saw something peculiar:

A bird perched on a distant tree, its feathers shimmering unnaturally in the sunlight, as if it had come straight out of a dream.

It was just the beginning.