EIRA'S POV
"Is anyone there?" My voice trembled, carried away by the stillness. The forest answered only with echoes, each one sharper, more menacing, until even my own words sounded like a stranger's.
The trees loomed overhead, branches twisting like skeletal fingers, weaving a cage of shadows around me. Panic surged hot and cold through my veins. I shouldn't be here. I needed to leave.
I spun—then froze.
A black snake.Coiled. Silent. Its eyes fixed on me, twin shards of midnight.
My body betrayed me, stumbling backward, legs weak. "Help! Help!" My voice cracked, thin against the heavy hush.
It slithered forward, smooth and deliberate, each movement squeezing the air from my lungs. I tried to run, but my legs refused to obey. Terror locked me in place.
And then—warmth. A sudden, strong grip wrapped around my waist, pulling me off the ground. I gasped, heart hammering, as I collided with a stranger's chest.
I looked up—and the world stilled.
A pair of inky black eyes held me captive. Darker than night, deeper than shadow. His face was hidden beneath a cloth, but those eyes… impossibly intense, endless, dangerous—and yet, somehow, safe.
My breath hitched. For the briefest, fragile moment, my fear faded. Something inside me stilled, as if I had been waiting for this gaze my entire life.
But the snake—
It lunged, striking with sudden violence.
His arm moved before I even saw it—fluid, precise. In a blink, the creature was hurled into the shadows, vanishing as though swallowed by the forest itself.
Silence followed. Heavy. Breathless.
I turned back—But he was gone.
The clearing stood empty, as though he had never been there at all. No footprints. No sound. Just me, trembling, clutching the memory of those eyes.
Was it real? Or another dream?
I swallowed hard, forcing my steps back toward the campus. My heart thudded with a strange new rhythm—fear, yes, but threaded with something else. Something I didn't understand.