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The wind howled through the valley, rattling the wooden window frames of a small house nestled between the misty hills of Bhutan. The night was alive with the sound of rustling prayer flags, their cloth damp from the earlier rain, whispering ancient prayers into the storm. Inside, a single butter lamp flickered weakly in the corner, its golden glow casting trembling shadows across the worn wooden walls. The scent of juniper incense lingered in the air, mixing with the earthy aroma of the wet soil outside.
Dechen lay in bed, her eyes shut tightly, but sleep eluded her. A sense of unease curled in her chest like a snake coiled, waiting to strike. She had felt it the moment dusk settled—the strange stillness in the air, the way the wind carried an eerie whisper as if the spirits themselves were watching. She had spent her life trusting her instincts, and right now, they screamed at her. Something was coming.
She took a deep breath, clutching the faded prayer beads under her pillow. It was just a storm. Just another restless night.
But then, the room suddenly shifted.
Her body sank into the mattress as if unseen hands were pulling her into the depths of something unknown. The distant sounds of the storm faded, replaced by a deafening silence that made her ears ring. She gasped, eyes fluttering open, only to realize she was no longer in her bed.
Darkness stretched before her—endless, suffocating. The world around her pulsed with an otherworldly energy, like the air before a lightning strike. Then, from the abyss, came a voice.
"When the two paths cross, fate will be awakened."
The words echoed, vibrating through her very bones. Dechen turned, heart pounding, searching for the source of the voice, but the shadows only deepened.
Then—a flash.
A scene burst into existence before her, disorienting in its intensity. A young woman stood in the middle of a chaotic street, her long dark hair whipping around her face. Rain poured down in thick sheets, turning the world into a blur of grays and blacks. Lightning cracked overhead, momentarily illuminating the figure before her.
Dechen's breath hitched. It was Sange.
Her daughter stood frozen, eyes wide with terror, her entire body tense as if preparing for something. Then, a masked figure emerged from the shadows. The figure was taller, powerful, his presence a force that made the very air shudder. His face was obscured—whether by the rain or something more supernatural, Dechen couldn't tell.
And then, suddenly—Sange was in danger.
A movement too fast to comprehend. A flash of a blade. The glint of steel under the flickering streetlight. A blur of shadows moving toward her daughter.
Dechen screamed, reaching out, but her voice was swallowed by the storm.
Then—a hand.
Not the masked figure's. Another hand. Strong, steady, and sure. It grasped Sange's wrist and pulled her out of harm's way just as the blade came down.
Dechen's vision blurred.
Another flash.
Now, she saw Sange again, but this time, her daughter's expression had changed. No longer frozen in fear, but filled with something else—an intensity, a pull toward the man beside her.
Their eyes met.
Lightning streaked across the sky, illuminating the scene for just a heartbeat. And in that fleeting moment, Dechen saw something terrifying.
Their fates had intertwined.
The storm raged on, but the vision began to splinter—fragments breaking apart, the images shifting too quickly for her to grasp. More glimpses—Sange running, a temple drenched in moonlight, blood staining the ground, a golden ring falling into a river, a pair of burning eyes staring back at her through the darkness.
Then, the voice returned.
"When the two paths cross, fate will be awakened."
With a sudden force, Dechen was ripped from the vision.
She shot upright in bed, gasping, her entire body shaking. Her clothes clung to her damp skin, her breath coming in ragged bursts. The storm outside still raged, but inside the room, the air had turned ice cold.
She pressed a trembling hand to her chest, trying to slow her frantic heartbeat. But the moment she closed her eyes, the images burned behind her lids.
What had she just seen?
Her daughter. A man. A connection that felt deeper than anything she could understand. And danger—so much danger.
The voice, the masked figure, the hand that had saved Sange…
It was a warning.
Her eyes flickered to the butter lamp still burning weakly in the corner. The flame trembled, as if sensing her fear.
She had to protect Sange.
Even if it meant keeping the truth from her.
Even if it meant rewriting fate itself.
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The child of the flames
As her heartbeat finally steadied, Dechen turned toward the small altar in the corner of the room. The statues of Guru Rinpoche and the protective deities stared back at her, their golden faces flickering in the dim light. She swallowed hard, reaching for the small bowl of water offerings, her hands still trembling.
She had never spoken about it—not to her husband, not to the monks in the village, not even to herself.
Her abilities had always been a secret.
Born during the Jambay Lhakhang Drup festival, Dechen had been considered special by the village elders. The festival, known for its sacred masked dances and the Mewang (Fire Blessing Ritual), was believed to burn away misfortune and reveal glimpses of the unseen.
Her mother used to tell her that the night she was born, the flames had burned blue.
A rare omen. A sign that Dechen was connected to something beyond the ordinary.
At first, it was harmless—small flickers of intuition, dreams that sometimes came true. But then, the visions began.
The first one had come when she was fifteen. A dream of a great flood days before the monsoon washed away half their village.
The second, when she was twenty, of a man in the marketplace who had smiled at her just before he died in an accident.
And now—this.
A prophecy of her own daughter's future.
Her grip tightened around the prayer beads.
This was different.
This wasn't just a dream. It was a warning.
She had never seen the masked figure before, nor the man who had saved Sange. But something in the way their fates entwined made her blood run cold.
She had to act.
Before it was too late.
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Closing Scene: The Decision
Dechen rose from her bed and walked toward the window. The storm was beginning to settle, but the weight in her chest remained.
She gazed out at the mountains in the distance, cloaked in the night's mist.
"When the two paths cross, fate will be awakened."
She whispered the words under her breath, tasting the weight of them.
Tomorrow, she would warn Sange.
Not everything—not yet.
But she would find a way to keep her daughter away from whatever destiny had in store.
Even if fate had already started to unravel.
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