Chapter 1: Full Moon Dream🌙✨
Ever since she was a child, Aarohi had been haunted by the exact same strange dream.
Every full moon, like clockwork, the vision would claim her the moment she closed her eyes. Not once had it changed. Not a single detail had shifted over the years.
In that dream, she always found herself standing barefoot in the middle of an unfamiliar, sprawling forest. But it wasn’t an ordinary forest. The towering trees shimmered like spun silver, their delicate leaves dripping with pale, liquid moonlight—as if the moon had deliberately hidden all its true, blinding radiance among their intertwining branches. The ground beneath her feet was carpeted in a soft, luminescent moss that responded to her every step.
The forest was profoundly silent.
It was a heavy, suffocating stillness, so absolute that she could hear the rhythmic thud of her own heartbeat and the ragged edge of her own breathing.
Then, somewhere in the misty distance, a voice would call out to her.
Soft.
Melancholic.
Filled with an unbearable, centuries-old longing.
"Aarohi..."
That was all.
Every single time, just her name, spoken like a sacred prayer. Someone called her. And every time, driven by an instinct she couldn't understand, she ran toward that voice. She tore through the silver trees, her dress catching on the wind. She rushed past glowing, ethereal flowers that bloomed only in the dark, sprinting across winding moonlit paths that seemed to lead to the edge of the universe.
But just when she was about to reach the source of the voice, just when the shadows began to part to reveal the one who was calling her...
Everything blurred into a wash of blinding white.
And she woke up.
As a little girl, the recurring dream had terrified her to the point of tears. But over the years, as she grew into a young woman, she had accepted it as an intimate, inescapable part of her life. Most people grew up with imaginary friends or childhood fantasies.
Aarohi grew up with a dream. A voice. A mysterious, haunting call from somewhere far beyond her reach.
And today...
It was her twenty-third birthday.
The day had been filled with a warm, intimate celebration at home. Her mother had spent the afternoon baking her favorite chocolate cake, filling the house with the comforting scent of cocoa and vanilla. Her father had gifted her a beautiful, intricately carved silver bracelet that she hadn't taken off since. Her phone screen had lit up constantly as messages and calls from friends kept arriving throughout the evening.
By all accounts, everything was perfectly, wonderfully normal.
Yet, an odd, unshakeable restlessness lingered deep inside her chest. It was a phantom anticipation, a tingling beneath her skin—as if something monumental was about to happen. As if the wind sweeping through her city carried an ancient secret, desperately waiting to be revealed.
Night slowly deepened. The house fell quiet.
Eleven o'clock.
Midnight.
And then... the full moon rose, ascending to claim its throne at the very center of the ink-black sky.
Standing beside her bedroom window, wrapped in a light shawl, Aarohi gazed outside. Tonight, the moon looked unusually beautiful. It was massive, casting a pearlescent glow over the sleepy neighborhood. And strangely enough... it felt as though the celestial body was looking right back at her, acknowledging her presence.
She smiled softly to herself, leaning against the cool glass.
"Happy Birthday to me," she whispered.
With a soft sigh, she drew the curtains and climbed into bed, pulling the covers up to her chin. A few moments later, the heavy, comforting embrace of sleep wrapped itself around her.
That night, the dream returned.
The same silver forest. The same glowing, majestic trees. The same cool, fragrant breeze brushing against her cheeks.
But this time... something was fundamentally different. The air crackled with unseen energy.
The voice sounded closer than it ever had before, resonating not just in her ears, but in her very soul.
"Aarohi..."
She turned, her bare feet pivoting on the silver moss.
And froze.
A figure stood in the distance.
For the first time in twenty-three years of dreaming. She could actually see someone. It was a tall, commanding silhouette bathed completely in moonlight, casting a long shadow across the forest floor.
Drawn by an invisible magnetic pull, she began walking toward him. Her heart pounded wildly inside her chest, echoing in her ears like a war drum.
One step.
Two steps.
Three steps.
Then, the figure slowly extended his hand toward her, his palm open, inviting.
"Finally..."
His voice echoed through the silent forest, rich and deeply melodic, sending a shiver down her spine.
"Finally, you've come."
Desperate for answers, Aarohi pushed forward, straining her eyes to see his face, to finally know the phantom who had haunted her entire life.
But at that exact, agonizing moment, the dream shattered like fragile glass.
Her eyes flew open.
She sat upright in bed, gasping for air as if she had been drowning. Her breathing was uneven, her chest heaving. Her heart hammered so violently against her ribs it felt as if it might physically burst.
The room was swathed in darkness. The only light was the pure, silver moonlight that streamed in through the glass doors leading to her balcony, casting long, eerie shadows across her wooden floor.
She wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead.
"That was strange..." she murmured, her voice trembling slightly in the quiet room.
She swung her legs over the edge of the bed, intending to get up for a glass of water from the nightstand, when her gaze drifted toward the balcony doors.
And her blood ran instantly, terrifyingly cold.
Someone was standing there.
A man.
He was perfectly still. Perfectly silent. His posture was relaxed, yet vigilant, as if he had been standing there, watching her sleep, for a very, very long time.
Aarohi's throat went bone dry. Panic spiked through her veins. Her mind instantly, frantically searched for rational explanations. A thief who had scaled the walls. A dangerous trespasser. A madman wandering the streets.
Or perhaps... she pinched her own arm hard... she was still dreaming.
But everything around her felt undeniably real. The cool touch of the bedsheets was real. The biting cold breeze slipping through the crack in the door was real. Her racing, terrified heartbeat was real.
And so was the man standing on her balcony.
Slowly, using the bedpost for support, Aarohi rose to her feet. Her legs trembled weakly beneath her.
"Who are you?" she asked, barely finding her voice, her tone a mixture of absolute terror and desperate defiance.
Silence lingered for a few agonizing moments. Only the rustle of the leaves outside filled the void.
Then, the man took a deliberate step forward into the light.
He looked perhaps twenty-five or twenty-six years old. As the moonlight spilled across his face, illuminating his features, Aarohi completely stopped breathing.
There was something undeniably, breathtakingly different about him. Something impossible.
He had long black hair, as dark and boundless as a midnight sky, catching the wind. His skin was flawlessly fair, almost resembling sculpted porcelain. And his eyes... his eyes were the most mesmerizing and terrifying things she had ever seen. They shimmered like liquid silver. A faint, ethereal glow seemed to drift just beneath his skin, pulsing softly.
It was as though the moonlight itself lived inside him, powering his very heartbeat.
But the strangest thing wasn't his otherworldly appearance. It was his face.
Looking at him, a sharp ache bloomed in her chest. She felt, with a frightening certainty, that she had seen his face before. Long ago. Somewhere far, far away. It was like a forgotten memory buried deep within the most protected corners of her soul, clawing its way to the surface.
For several long, heavy moments, he simply looked at her through the glass. There was a myriad of emotions swirling in those silver eyes. Surprise. Overwhelming relief. And a sorrow so deep, so profound, it seemed ancient—as if he had carried it across lifetimes.
Then, the corners of his lips curved upward, and he smiled gently.
At last, he spoke. His voice was the exact same melodic cadence from her dreams.
"So... you can finally see me."
Aarohi's heart skipped a violent beat. Her mind reeled.
"Excuse me?"
The stranger chuckled softly, a rich sound that felt entirely out of place in the tense atmosphere.
"I've been coming here for quite some time."
"WHAT?"
Her voice rose instantly, panic giving way to sheer outrage and shock.
"You've been coming to my house?"
"Technically, the balcony."
His expression remained perfectly serious, completely devoid of malice, as if he were discussing the weather rather than admitting to stalking her.
At that moment, gripping the fabric of her nightgown, Aarohi became absolutely certain of one thing: either he was completely insane... or she was.
"Who are you?" she demanded again, taking a cautious step back.
For a few seconds, the stranger simply looked at her, his gaze sweeping over her features as though he wanted to memorize every single detail of her face, afraid she might vanish into thin air.
"My name is Eryan......And yours?"
The name sounded completely unfamiliar. Yet, it was oddly beautiful. It felt heavy with history, like something pulled from the pages of an old, forgotten legend. But still, controlling her trembling hands and mounting fear, she gave a blunt, guarded reply.
“And what makes you think I'll tell you.?"
The gentle smile returned to his face,,,,,
"Aarohi."
The color instantly drained from her face. But alongside the shock, another strange feeling washed over her. It was a profound sense of déjà vu, as if she had heard this specific voice say her name thousands of times before,,,,,
The way he spoke her name seemed to be intimately familiar,
as if only this voice—and this voice alone—had the right to claim her name in this specific manner, for centuries.
"How do you know my name?" she breathed out, her defenses crumbling against the weight of his gaze.
Eryan didn't answer immediately.
He simply kept looking at her. There was something intensely magnetic in his gaze. It was a look of pure devotion, as if he had crossed oceans of time and waited years just to witness this exact, fragile moment.
"I have waited through centuries... just for this moment," he said quietly, the sorrow returning to edge his words.
To be continued 🌙✨
