The Ripple

The third night, I didn’t hesitate.

But I was already slipping.

By then, everything in the waking world had started to feel... off. Like my reality was fraying at the edges.

At school, the lights felt too bright. The voices too sharp. The corridors too narrow. I walked through them like someone visiting a place he used to belong—only to find everything repainted, slightly wrong.

I’d stopped laughing at Rael’s jokes. I’d stopped answering half the questions in class. My mind was elsewhere, caught in the memory of moonlit leaves and glowing stones.

“You’ve been weird lately,” Rael said that day, squinting at me. “Like... dreamier than usual. Are you in love or dying?”

I managed a dry smile. “Maybe both.”

He rolled his eyes. “You’re not even denying it.”

But how could I?

I wasn’t just dreaming anymore. I was waiting to dream.

That night, I skipped dinner and shut myself in early. Not because I was tired, but because I wasn’t.

I was wide awake.

Too awake.

My mind buzzed like a machine overheating—spinning with one thought: I need to go back.

I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. My room felt heavy, like it didn’t want me anymore. Like the air knew I didn’t belong here.

I closed my eyes.

And fell.

---

The dream caught me instantly, like an old friend pulling me into its arms.

The moment my feet touched the stone of that strange school’s courtyard, I knew something had changed.

The air was different.

It felt charged—like static before a storm. Each breath sparked on my tongue. My skin tingled.

Even the silence felt thicker.

And then I saw her.

The girl from before.

She stood beneath the silver-leaved tree, facing me directly this time. The light caught her hair like strands of starlight. She wasn’t smiling.

“You felt it, didn’t you?” she said.

I nodded slowly. “Yeah. It’s like the world’s waiting for something.”

Her silver hair moved despite the stillness. “No. Not waiting. Recognizing.”

“Recognizing what?” I asked.

“You.”

I swallowed.

She turned and walked past the edge of the courtyard, beyond the arches, into a place I hadn’t noticed before. I followed her without thinking.

We stepped into a secluded garden—one that hadn’t been there before. The air here shimmered, warmer and darker, lit by floating lanterns that hovered in place like captured stars. They pulsed faintly, in rhythm with something I couldn’t hear.

At the center was a wide stone platform.

Intricate glowing lines carved through its surface, moving in slow spirals like veins of light. The whole thing seemed alive.

“This is where it begins,” she said softly. “Your bond to this world. And its rules.”

I stared at the glowing stone. “Rules?”

She nodded. “You’ve already broken one. You entered this place with memory intact. Most forget. But you didn’t.”

I stepped toward the platform, unable to look away. The closer I got, the stronger the glow became.

“What is this place, really?” I asked. “It feels like a dream, but it’s more than that. It remembers me.”

She didn’t answer.

Instead, she said, “Touch it.”

I hesitated—but my hand was already reaching out.

My fingers brushed the stone—

And it pulsed.

Warmth shot up my arm. The glow surged beneath my touch, as if responding to something inside me.

The lines rearranged. Slightly. Delicately.

Like the stone was adapting.

“It knows you,” she whispered. “It remembers, too.”

“Why? What is this?”

“This world responds to emotion,” she said. “To thought. Here, intention is the spell.”

I turned to her, heartbeat loud in my ears. “So you’re saying I can use magic?”

“You already did.”

“When?”

“You remembered. That’s a form of magic here. But it can do more.”

She stepped back, giving me space.

“Try it,” she said. “Think of changing something. A shape. A sound. A color. Let the world hear you.”

I hesitated. Then I closed my eyes.

I imagined the sky above us turning crimson—deep and rich, like spilled ink under a dying sun.

I opened my eyes.

And it had changed.

The lavender sky had bled into a deep red. The stars blinked out, replaced by a slow, swirling storm of color.

I stumbled back. “I didn’t even say anything—”

“You don’t need to,” she said. “Not here.”

I looked at my hands. They were shaking. “I’m shaping the dream…”

She nodded. “And the dream is shaping you.”

The air pulsed.

Something shifted.

A cold wind swept the garden.

And then—a tremor.

The sky shuddered.

A ripple spread across it like a black oil slick, breaking the illusion of calm. The red cracked, splitting like glass, and the silver leaves above us curled inward.

The stone beneath my feet dimmed.

The girl’s expression changed—her calm vanished.

“No...” she whispered. “That wasn’t you.”

“What was that?”

Her eyes darted to the sky. “Something noticed you.”

I backed away. “You said I wasn’t supposed to awaken yet—what does that mean?”

She turned to me sharply. “It means you’ve been seen.”

Then I felt it.

Not a presence. Not a voice. Not even a thought.

It was colder than thought.

It was a hunger.

A shadow pressed into my mind, ancient and vast—and whispered with no mouth:

“Found you.”

I couldn’t move.

The lanterns flickered violently. The glow in the stone died.

The entire world shook like it was about to collapse.

The girl grabbed my wrist. “Run!”

“Where?!”

“Anywhere! You weren’t supposed to awaken this soon!”

The black ripple spread across the sky like ink dropped in water.

And the dream—the world—screamed.

Everything shattered.

The lanterns exploded into dust. The tree above us cracked down the center. The stone platform crumbled beneath me.

And I fell—

Into cold.

Into dark.

Into silence.

---

Author’s Note – By Anurag

Why is the dream beginning to break?

Why can Lucen remember what others forget?

What ancient thing just whispered “Found you”?

This chapter marks the moment Lucen awakens to something deeper—and something begins awakening to him.

If thoughts shape the dream...

What happens when fear takes over?Stick around for Chapter 4—The one who waits may not be the one who saves.