Nivana had been awakened violently by the aggressive vibration of her phone signalling that she's getting a call.

Her mind was spiraling. The pain — the unbearable, clawing pain from earlier, still lingered in the back of her mind. But now, a newer ache settled beside it, sharp with fear and desperate heartbreak.

Memories flickered like broken film across her vision — her mother's smile, the warm scent of tea steeping in the kitchen, the way her laughter filled the house — and then, the cold voice on the phone pulling her back into reality. She clung to the hope that this was just another nightmare. That soon she'd wake again, heart racing but safe.

But the words he had said echoed in her mind, refusing to be shaken off.

Accident.
Car crash.
Miracle she's alive.

Her breath caught in her throat. The voice — the doctor, she assumed — kept talking, explaining the impossible. Her mother was awake, lucid, as though death had merely brushed by her, leaving only a couple of bruises from firefighters pulling her out of the fully wrecked car.

Her phone slipped through the grip of her hand, falling onto the floor with a dull, and final thud. The sound barely registered in Nivana's head.

Her mother had gotten into a car crash. One that was impossible to survive. Some Land Rover had pushed her small car underneath a truck. The full car her mother was in was reduced to a small space, just big enough for her to breath. Doctors are still wondering how her mother managed to survive.

It hadn't originally registered, but now that she heard about the scene, it all came back, like the fluid of memories. The pain. The feeling of something snapping. the low voice. The scene of a wrecked car. And the sirens of an ambulance.

After falling asleep a couple hours ago, she had seen a car wreck in her sleep. She had driven the ambulance until they arrived at the hospital. She was there, not physically, but she was definitely there, she had seen the scene the exact way the doctor described it to her.

She picked up the device that had fallen on the ground. The clock on her read 4:30 p.m. She was asleep for six hours — a blank space carved into her day, leaving only the lingering taste of fear and iron on her tongue.

Nivana sat up, her body protested each movement. Every muscle in her body ached, as though she had fought some unseen battle while her mind drifted. Her eyes drifted to the window, where daylight had begun to fade into a bruised sky. Shadows stretched long across her room, the corners thick with something that felt heavier than simple dusk.

A flicker of something dark — a shadow, maybe? — caught the corner of her vision, gone before she could fully see it. She froze, breath shallow, pulse fluttering in her throat. It wasn't just the leftover fear making her see things. She felt it too, a familiar weight, like unseen eyes resting gently on her skin.

She could still sense it.

Whatever it was, she had sensed it before.

Swallowing hard, Nivana forced herself to stand, each step toward the kitchen a negotiation with her own trembling legs. Her bare feet whispered against the cool floor, grounding her in the simple, mundane act of moving. One foot in front of the other. That's how you survive the impossible.

The kitchen felt too quiet — too still. She opened the fridge and reached for the lemonade. The sharp citrus scent filled the room, but it didn't cut through the lingering chill in the air.

The cold glass against her palm felt almost too cold — a sharp contrast to the lingering warmth in her chest, a phantom ache that hadn't fully left. She shook her head, brushing it off. "It's just stress," she told herself. Just stress.

The lemonade left a sharp sting on her tongue, but she barely tasted it. Each swallow was automatic, mechanical — something to do with her hands, something to ground her to the physical world when her mind was too busy unraveling.

The silence pressed in again, heavier this time. It wasn't the comforting quiet of an empty house — it was the wrong kind of silence, too deliberate, as though something was listening, waiting for her to notice.

Nivana's gaze lifted, her reflection staring back at her from the dark kitchen window. For a moment, her own eyes seemed wrong, darker, like shadows curled just beneath the surface. She blinked, and they were hers again — wide, tired, too human for the things she'd felt.

A sharp breath filled her lungs, though it felt like breathing in cold fog. She needed to move. Sitting still only made the shadows press closer, made her mind wander back to the tearing pain in her chest, the moment her world had tilted sideways and something invisible had snapped.

She set the glass down, barely aware of the faint clink it made against the counter, and turned back toward the hallway. Each step felt too loud, each breath a whisper too close to breaking.

Her fingers brushed the wall as she walked, the texture of peeling paint familiar under her touch. Real. Real enough to hold on to, even if the world beneath her feet was beginning to feel like thin ice.

As she reached her room, her phone still lay where she'd dropped it, the screen dark and waiting. A reminder. The call had been real. The words had been real.

She abruptly came to a halt when she caught a movement, near the edge of her doorway.

A shadow — no, a dark human-like figure — stood there, indistinct and silent, its shape barely brushing the threshold between her room and the hall. It didn't move. It didn't breathe. It only waited.

Nivana's heart pounded in her ears, loud enough to drown out everything else.

And then, like smoke meeting a breeze, it dissolved into nothing.

She stood there, phone in hand, staring at the empty space where it had been.

She didn't scream. She didn't move.

Because somehow, deep in the marrow of her bones, Nivana knew:

It wasn't here to hurt her.

It was only watching.

And it would come back. 

Chapter word count: 1027 (Wattpad) / 1047 (Docs)

Novella word count: 2051 (Wattpad) / 2116 (Docs)