The Dream Beneath the Ashes
Madeline
It didn’t feel like sleep.
There was no gentle descent, no soft slip into rest.
One moment, I was staring into the silver-tinted dark, trying to see what hid in the shadows.
And the next thing, I was falling.
Not in the same way that you fall from a bed or tumble down a staircase. No— this was deeper. Slower. Like I was sinking between the seams of two worlds—like I was slipping into something ancient, forbidden, into something that had been lying in wait for a long time, as if it was waiting for me to remember.
Brief images that made no sense began to flash before my eyes as I fell through the empty void.
His laughter—unfiltered, bright. The sun was warming the side of his face as he ran barefoot into the cove, the silver light from the stars
