Light poured in through the window, but Julie felt as if the night still hadn't ended.
Her room was the same, yet it seemed... different. Quieter. As if it had held its breath, listening.
She stretched slowly and once again felt that same strange warmth spreading from her collarbone to the tips of her fingers. She pulled her shirt aside. The mark was fainter now, but still there—darker than before, as if it were sinking deeper.
She crept downstairs. Everything she saw and felt was sharper. The dripping of the tap, the dust in the air, the beating of her own heart—loud, steady.
And that feeling—that she was no longer an ordinary girl.
During lessons, she saw the colors of emotions. When someone lied, they turned gray. When they were jealous, they glowed green—almost fluorescent. One of the teachers had a shadow around him... as if someone was watching him from somewhere else, as if something was standing behind him.
She said nothing.
Not yet.
That evening, she stood in front of the mirror and looked into her own eyes. They were the same as always, but now they gleamed with something she couldn't name.
"I won't let you take over completely," she whispered, though she wasn't sure whose battle this was.
She blinked, and for a split second, she saw her reflection... smiling.
But it wasn't her smile.
*
Julie took a different route home from school. Something pulled her there. Not a thought—more like an impulse, an inner voice guiding her steps along an overgrown path by the old railway tracks. Every step felt purposeful, even though she didn't know where she was going.
When she stopped among the trees, she heard something that wasn't a sound.
It was a presence.
She closed her eyes.
Suddenly, her heartbeat slowed. The world around her stretched. The air was heavier. In the distance—movement. A small bird, hidden in the thicket, took off abruptly. It froze mid-flight... and Julie heard its thought.
Not words, but a pure pulse of fear.
She opened her eyes. Everything seemed normal again, but she knew—it hadn't been a hallucination.
She could sync with what was alive.
The same thing happened to her biology teacher. Julie saw anger inside her—spreading through her body like dark streaks. She didn't know the source, but one glance from Julie made the woman stammer, lower her gaze, and fall silent.
Something was happening.
Something was cracking between the world she knew and the one she was being led toward.
That evening, she looked in the mirror again. This time, there was no reflection—for a heartbeat, she saw darkness. Not a void. A shape.
Someone.
She clenched her jaw and stepped back from the glass. She didn't scream. She didn't flinch.
Because she was beginning to understand.
Whatever was changing her—it wasn't just a curse.
It was a blade.
And she was learning how to wield it.
*
Jeremy stood by his window, absentmindedly turning a feather between his fingers—a long, black one, strangely heavy for a simple bird's feather.
He remembered Henry once told him that some objects stay with you only when they have something to reveal.
But it wasn't the feather that unsettled him.
It was Julie.
He felt her.
Not as a memory, not as longing. As a presence, vibrating under his skin, like his own energy was reacting to changes in her. As if something had touched her... and left a mark.
Foreign. Powerful.
His hand closed around the feather.
A familiar weight filled his chest—a mix of protectiveness and anger that hadn't found its target yet.
He closed his eyes. Focused. Searched for her thoughts, her breath, like he once had in dreams. But this time, it wasn't a dream.
For a moment, he saw:
Dark trees.
Blood.
A mirror.
And… a foreign shadow standing behind her reflection.
He opened his eyes with a gasp, breath ragged like after a sprint. His eyelids were damp.
"Julie..."
Something in her was breaking.
And he knew—if he didn't act fast, he could lose her. Not physically.
But forever.
*
Julie dreamed of water.
A deep lake, still as glass. She stood in the middle, barefoot, in a thin dress whose fabric rippled though there was no wind. The water reflected her image—but not just hers.
Behind her stood a figure.
A shadow.
Rosalie.
Julie held her breath, but before she could turn around, the water's surface trembled…
… and from the opposite shore of the dream, he appeared.
Jeremy.
His gaze was unlike anything before—not worried, not full of boyish turmoil.
He was focused. Alert. Powerful.
"Julie," he said softly, his voice cutting through the dream like a command. "This isn't just a dream. Someone tried to change you. I can feel it."
She trembled, because she recognized the truth in his words.
"Rosalie… did something to me. But I don't know what. I feel different, but…" her voice broke. "I'm afraid of what I'm becoming."
Jeremy stepped closer. The water didn't ripple under his feet.
When he took her hands, the lake vanished.
They were alone.
"You're not alone," he said quietly. "No matter what she tried to do. If something inside you is changing… I'll help you control it. Or cut it off. But the choice is yours. Always yours."
Julie nodded without speaking, tears welling in her eyes—not from fear.
From relief.
"Don't go," she whispered.
"I can't," he replied. "Not even in dreams."
Their foreheads touched, and the world around them burst for a moment in bright light—
As if fate itself acknowledged that these two were bound in a way that could no longer be severed.
And just then… Rosalie took a step back.
Because something meant to be Julie's nightmare had become a fortress built on trust.
*
Julie woke up with a start, as if surfacing from an ocean she hadn't known existed. The ceiling above her looked too bright, too unreal. For a moment, she couldn't catch her breath.
But she could still feel him.
Jeremy.
This wasn't just a dream.
She couldn't pretend anymore.
She ran her fingers across her pillow, as if searching for traces of something that had only just vanished. Her heart pounded unevenly, as if her body was trying to catch up with what was happening inside her.
"He was here," she whispered to herself. "He really was."
But she felt something more.
As if a part of her she had tried to hide had awakened with her.
Rosalie had left a mark.
Not physical. Not brutal.
But mental—woven from influence and subtle cracks.
Julie felt her emotions changing.
She was more sensitive to the world around her. She heard things that had once been just noise. She had the impression the shadows in the corner of the room… were breathing.
And it wasn't fear.
It was readiness.
She got out of bed, her feet touching the cold floor.
In the mirror, she saw something else.
Her eyes.
Slightly darker. As if a shadow had briefly passed through them.
But it was her face.
Still her.
"I need to know what's happening to me," she told the reflection. "Before it's too late."
Her thoughts drifted to Jeremy.
To his words.
His touch.
The dream that wasn't a dream.
If anyone could help her—it was him.
But before she found him…
She had to understand herself.