At first, he thought it was just a coincidence.

  That strange dream where he met her—the girl with the eyes that felt like they had seen through time—must have been a one-time thing. A trick of the mind. A lingering echo of loneliness. But then it happened again. And again. Night after night, she was there.

  They never spoke at first. She would appear in a strange place—sometimes a foggy forest with silver leaves, sometimes a tower floating in the clouds—and just watch him. Smiling gently, like she was waiting for something. Each time Alex tried to ask who she was, the dream would end.

  But slowly, she began to speak.

  And her voice was exactly how he imagined it would be: soft, distant, and hauntingly familiar.

  “You’re not like the others,” she whispered one night, standing in a field where glowing flowers bloomed with every step she took.

  Alex woke up breathless, heart pounding, that voice echoing in his ears long after he left the dream.

  By the fourth night, he stopped doubting it. This wasn’t a normal dream. This was something else.

  Something calling to him.

  Alex had never liked his village. Even as a child, he found it too quiet, too perfect—like a painting where nothing ever changed. The same people, the same paths, the same routines.

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  What bothered him most was the jungle.

  It surrounded them on all sides like a thick, green wall. No matter which way you looked, the trees loomed. Tall, ancient, watching. The adults always said the same thing: “We’re the only humans on this planet. Everything beyond those trees is death.”

  That was the rule.

  No one crossed the jungle.

  Ever.

  And yet, something about it called to him now, more than ever.

  He often found himself staring into the forest from the edge of the village, as if trying to see through the veil of vines and shadow. And he remembered the stories.

  Especially the one about his father.

  His mother had told him the truth when he was younger—at least, what she believed to be true. His father had gone into the jungle when Alex was still a baby. No one knew why. He never returned. That was all she ever said.

  “Your father was brave,” she once told him. “But sometimes bravery is just another name for foolishness.”

  Alex never understood what that meant. Now he wondered if even she did.

  What made it all worse was that he was the only child.

  There were no other kids in the village.

  Not one.

  No playmates, no classmates, no birthday parties—just Alex, the strange boy who everyone smiled at too kindly and pitied too often. When he asked about it, the answers were always vague.

  “They moved away.”

  “They weren’t well.”

  “They’re in another part of the village.”

  But Alex had explored every part of the village. There was no other part.

  At first, he believed the excuses. Then he started to feel like something was deeply wrong.

  No one ever lied to him. But no one ever told the truth either.

  The girl in his dreams was the only one who made him feel sane. Real. Seen.

  “I don’t belong here,” he told her one night.

  She only nodded. “Then stop pretending you do.”

  From that night on, he didn’t fear the jungle anymore. He feared the lies that kept him from it.