6:17
The first thing Ethan noticed was that his pillow was wet.
For a few seconds, he didn’t understand why.
He lay still, staring at the ceiling, listening to the old electric fan turning above him. The room was dark except for the weak morning light slipping through the curtains.
Then he remembered the dream.
Ethan sat up.
His heart was pounding.
He wiped his face with the back of his hand.
He had been crying.
That bothered him more than the dream itself.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried in his sleep.
Actually, he couldn’t remember ever doing it.
Ethan reached for his phone on the bedside table.
6:17 a.m.
He frowned.
For some reason, the time felt familiar.
Not because he had just seen it.
Because he’d seen it before.
In the dream.
He closed his eyes.
Rain.
That was the first thing he remembered.
Heavy rain falling onto an empty street.
The road had been shiny with water, reflecting broken streetlights that flickered on and off above him.
He had been standing in the middle of it without an umbrella.
He remembered looking down at his clothes.
A gray shirt.
Black jeans.
The same clothes he had been wearing yesterday.
That should have been impossible.
Dreams didn’t usually make sense.
But this one had.
Too much.
There had been a woman standing twenty meters away.
She was wearing a dark blue dress.
Her hair was soaked, and water ran down her face.
She looked directly at Ethan.
He remembered feeling like he knew her.
He just didn’t know from where.
“Who are you?” he’d asked.
The woman didn’t answer.
Instead, she looked behind him.
Her expression changed.
Fear.
Real fear.
Ethan had turned around.
Someone was standing beneath a broken streetlight.
A man.
He couldn’t see the man’s face.
“Who is that?” Ethan had asked.
The woman suddenly ran toward him.
She grabbed his wrist.
Her hand had been freezing.
“You have to wake up,” she whispered.
“What?”
“You have to wake up before he finds you.”
Then Ethan had heard footsteps behind him.
Slow.
Calm.
Getting closer.
He had tried to turn around.
But the woman held his wrist tighter.
“Don’t let him see you.”
And then—
Ethan woke up.
He opened his eyes.
His bedroom was still there.
His fan was still turning.
The rain was gone.
Everything was normal.
Almost.
Ethan pushed the blanket away and stood.
His legs felt weak.
He walked toward the bathroom.
Halfway there, he stopped.
Something was bothering him.
His wrist.
Ethan pulled up his sleeve.
A red mark surrounded his wrist.
He stared at it.
It wasn’t a scratch.
It wasn’t a bruise.
It looked like someone had drawn a symbol directly onto his skin.
A circle.
Five thin lines crossed through it.
Ethan touched it.
Nothing happened.
He turned his wrist from side to side.
“Okay.”
He laughed nervously.
“That’s new.”
He went into the bathroom.
The light flickered when he switched it on.
Ethan looked at himself in the mirror.
His hair was a mess.
His eyes were red.
He looked exhausted.
“Great.”
He turned on the faucet.
Cold water ran over his hands.
He splashed some onto his face.
Then he looked up.
His reflection was staring back at him.
For a moment, Ethan thought everything was fine.
Then he noticed something.
His reflection wasn’t moving.
Ethan froze.
He slowly raised his right hand.
The reflection didn’t.
His stomach dropped.
He stepped backward.
The reflection remained perfectly still.
Then it smiled.
Ethan didn’t.
He stumbled into the bathroom door.
“What the hell?”
The reflection lifted its hand.
It pressed one finger against the inside of the mirror.
Words appeared beneath it.
Not written in blood.
Not scratched into the glass.
They simply appeared.
YOU WERE HERE BEFORE.
Ethan couldn’t breathe.
He reached for the light switch.
The bathroom went dark.
“Mom!”
The light came back.
The mirror was normal.
No words.
No strange reflection.
Nothing.
Ethan stood there for several seconds.
Then his phone rang.
He almost dropped it.
The screen showed:
UNKNOWN NUMBER
He stared at it.
The phone stopped.
A few seconds later, it rang again.
Ethan answered.
“Hello?”
Nothing.
“Who is this?”
A man’s voice finally came through.
“Ethan.”
He knew the voice.
Not from real life.
From somewhere else.
Somewhere he couldn’t remember.
“Who are you?”
The man laughed quietly.
“You really don’t remember me?”
Ethan’s grip tightened around the phone.
“No.”
“You will.”
The call ended.
Ethan stared at the screen.
A message appeared.
Tomorrow night.
Another message followed.
You’re going to dream about me.
Then a final message.
Don’t wake up.
Ethan read it twice.
Then he looked at the bathroom mirror.
The symbol on his wrist had started to hurt.
“Ethan!”
His mother’s voice came from downstairs.
“Breakfast!”
He pulled his sleeve over the mark.
“Coming!”
He went downstairs.
The smell of fried eggs filled the kitchen.
His mother stood beside the stove, still wearing her old house shirt. She had probably been awake since five.
She looked at him once.
Then again.
“You didn’t sleep well.”
“I’m fine.”
“You look terrible.”
“Thanks.”
She smiled.
“Eat.”
Ethan sat down.
His mother placed a plate in front of him.
For a while, neither of them spoke.
Ethan picked up his fork.
Then stopped.
“Mom?”
“Hmm?”
“Do you believe dreams can feel real?”
His mother’s hand stopped.
Only for a second.
Then she continued cooking.
“Why?”
“I had a weird one.”
“Nightmare?”
“I don’t know.”
His mother turned around.
“What happened?”
Ethan hesitated.
He almost told her everything.
The woman.
The man.
The symbol.
The mirror.
The phone call.
But something stopped him.
He didn’t know why.
“Nothing,” he said. “I just had a strange dream.”
His mother watched him.
“Try not to think about it.”
Ethan frowned.
“That’s it?”
“Dreams are dreams.”
She turned back toward the stove.
But her voice had changed.
It sounded forced.
Ethan noticed.
He always noticed when his mother was hiding something.
He just didn’t know what she was hiding.
He looked toward the window.
A girl was standing across the street.
She looked around twelve or thirteen.
She was staring directly at him.
Ethan lowered his fork.
The girl raised her hand.
She was wearing a silver bracelet.
Ethan’s eyes immediately went to the symbol engraved on it.
The same circle.
The same five lines.
His chair scraped against the floor.
His mother turned.
“What?”
Ethan was already standing.
He ran outside.
“Wait!”
The girl turned and ran.
Ethan followed her around the corner.
Nothing.
The street was empty.
He looked left.
Then right.
No girl.
No footsteps.
Nothing.
“Ethan.”
He turned.
His mother was standing at the entrance to their house.
She wasn’t angry.
She looked frightened.
He walked back.
“Mom, who was that girl?”
“I don’t know.”
“She had this.”
Ethan pulled up his sleeve.
His mother saw the symbol.
Her face changed.
She walked toward him.
“Where did you get that?”
“It appeared this morning.”
“When?”
“When I woke up.”
His mother grabbed his wrist.
Hard.
“Did anyone touch you?”
Ethan stared at her.
“What?”
“Did anyone touch you?”
“No.”
“Think carefully.”
“I said no.”
She released him.
For a few seconds, she stared at the mark.
Then she looked toward the street.
“Mom?”
She didn’t answer.
“What is it?”
“Nothing.”
“You obviously know what it is.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Then why are you scared?”
She looked at him.
And Ethan saw something in her eyes he had never seen before.
Guilt.
His mother stepped closer.
“Listen to me.”
Her voice was quiet.
“Whatever you saw this morning, forget it.”
“Why?”
“Because you don’t want to know.”
Ethan laughed.
It wasn’t funny.
“You can’t tell me I have some weird symbol on my wrist and then tell me not to ask questions.”
His mother looked away.
“Ethan.”
“What?”
“Some things are better forgotten.”
She went inside.
Ethan remained on the sidewalk.
He looked down at his wrist.
The symbol seemed darker now.
For the first time, he wondered whether his mother knew exactly what was happening.
And if she did...
How long had she been lying to him?
That night, Ethan didn’t want to sleep.
He sat at his desk with his laptop open.
He searched for the symbol.
Nothing.
He tried different descriptions.
A circle with five lines.
A five-line circle symbol.
A strange wrist symbol.
Nothing useful.
He searched for the phone number.
Nothing.
He searched the exact words from the message.
Don’t wake up.
Thousands of results appeared.
None of them meant anything.
At 1:46 a.m., Ethan finally closed the laptop.
He climbed into bed.
He stared at the ceiling.
“Just sleep.”
He said it to himself.
“Then tomorrow will be normal.”
His eyes closed.
The fan turned above him.
Click.
Click.
Click.
And then he heard rain.
Ethan opened his eyes.
He wasn’t in his bedroom.
He was standing in the middle of a street.
Rain fell around him.
He looked down.
Same clothes.
Same street.
Same broken lights.
But something was different.
The cars looked older.
The buildings looked older.
A newspaper floated through a puddle near his feet.
Ethan picked it up.
The date on the front page made his hands go cold.
October 17, 2009.
“No.”
He looked around.
A bus passed him.
He stepped back.
People walked along the sidewalk.
Nobody looked at him.
A man walked directly through him.
Ethan turned around.
“What the—”
He looked at his hands.
They were solid.
He could feel the rain.
He could feel the cold.
He could smell wet concrete.
This wasn’t a normal dream.
“Ethan.”
He turned.
The woman in the blue dress stood beneath the broken streetlight.
The same woman.
The one from his first dream.
Only now she wasn’t afraid.
She looked relieved.
“You came.”
Ethan couldn’t move.
“Who are you?”
The woman smiled sadly.
“You really don’t remember.”
“Remember what?”
She stepped closer.
“You’ve been here before.”
“I’ve never been here.”
“You have.”
“When?”
The woman looked at his wrist.
“Before you were born.”
Ethan stared at her.
“What does that mean?”
She opened her mouth.
Then stopped.
Her eyes moved toward the end of the street.
Ethan followed her gaze.
The man was there.
Under the broken streetlight.
This time, Ethan could see his face.
Older.
Maybe in his forties.
Dark hair.
A small scar above his eyebrow.
And eyes that looked strangely familiar.
The man began walking toward them.
The woman grabbed Ethan’s arm.
“Don’t let him touch you.”
“Why?”
“Because the moment he does...”
She looked at Ethan with tears in her eyes.
“...you’ll remember everything.”
The man was getting closer.
Ethan’s heart hammered.
“What am I supposed to remember?”
The woman whispered the answer.
“Who you were.”
The man stopped only a few meters away.
He looked at Ethan.
Not surprised.
Not confused.
Almost relieved.
Then he smiled.
“Hello, Ethan.”
Ethan couldn’t speak.
The man took another step.
“You’re older than I expected.”
Ethan looked at the woman.
Then at the man.
“Who are you?”
The man smiled.
And this time, his answer wasn’t mysterious.
It was worse.
“Someone you’ve been trying to forget.”
The symbol on Ethan’s wrist suddenly burned.
He cried out.
The street disappeared.
The rain stopped.
Everything went black.
And just before Ethan woke up, he heard the man’s voice one last time.
“Next time, don’t wake up.”
