The Voice in the Darkness
It was dark.
Not the gentle darkness of night, where moonlight slipped through windows and stars watched from beyond the clouds.
This darkness was different.
It had no sky.
No ground.
No beginning.
No end.
Iris could not tell whether she was standing or falling.
She could only feel the cold.
It seeped through her body, freezing her fingers, her feet, even the air in her lungs.
She tried to move.
Nothing happened.
“Where am I...?”
Her voice came out as little more than a whisper.
There was no answer.
She looked around, but there was nothing to see.
Only darkness.
Then—
A sharp pain pierced her chest.
Iris gasped.
Her hand flew instinctively to her heart.
Something warm trickled between her fingers.
Blood.
Her breath caught.
“W-What...?”
She looked down.
Her clothes were stained red.
Blood was spreading across her chest.
She tried to scream, but her voice refused to come.
Her knees weakened.
She fell.
The darkness swallowed her.
And then she heard it.
A voice.
Faint.
Desperate.
Calling her name.
“Iris!”
Her eyes widened.
Someone was there.
Someone was looking for her.
She tried to answer, but her throat felt as though it had been sealed shut.
The voice came again.
Closer this time.
“Iris!”
She desperately reached toward it.
“Who...?”
Her fingers trembled.
“Who are you?”
The darkness shifted.
For the briefest moment, she thought she saw a figure standing far away.
A young man.
She could not see his face.
But somehow...
she knew him.
Her heart ached at the sight of him.
A strange, painful longing filled her chest.
“Akasa...”
The name escaped her lips before she even understood why.
The figure seemed to move toward her.
“Iris!”
She reached out.
“Akasa!”
But before their hands could meet—
Everything disappeared.
“Iris!”
Her eyes flew open.
She sat upright in bed, gasping for breath.
Morning sunlight poured through the tall windows of her bedroom.
For several seconds, she simply stared ahead.
Her heart was pounding.
Her hands trembled.
She touched her chest.
There was no blood.
No wound.
Nothing.
Only her heartbeat.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
Iris slowly looked around the room.
The familiar curtains.
The wooden furniture.
The paintings on the walls.
The vase of flowers beside her bed.
Everything was exactly where it should be.
She swallowed.
“A dream...”
Her voice was barely audible.
Just a nightmare.
That was all.
Yet something about it felt different.
The fear was still there.
So was the strange ache in her chest.
And that name...
“Akasa.”
She whispered it again.
Her brows furrowed.
Why had she called someone by that name?
She knew no one by that name.
At least...
she thought she didn’t.
Iris pressed her fingers against her temple.
“Why does it feel like I’ve lost someone?”
A gentle knock sounded at the door.
Iris immediately straightened.
“Lady Iris?”
She recognized the voice.
Her maid.
“Come in.”
The door opened.
Her maid entered carrying a tray of tea and breakfast.
But the moment she looked at Iris, she stopped.
“Lady Iris?”
“What?”
“You look pale.”
Iris glanced toward the mirror.
Her reflection stared back at her.
She looked completely normal.
No blood.
No injuries.
Only a young woman with slightly disheveled hair and tired eyes.
“I had a strange dream.”
“A nightmare?”
Iris nodded.
Her maid placed the tray on the table.
“What happened in it?”
Iris opened her mouth.
Then stopped.
She didn’t know how to explain it.
There had been darkness.
Blood.
A voice.
And a man she couldn’t remember.
“A man called my name.”
Her maid tilted her head.
“Do you know him?”
Iris stared at her reflection again.
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
She didn’t know him.
She couldn’t.
And yet...
Her heart still hurt whenever she remembered his voice.
“I don’t even know why I called his name.”
“What was his name?”
Iris hesitated.
Then quietly said,
“Akasa.”
Her maid repeated it.
“Akasa?”
Iris nodded.
Neither of them noticed the faint change in Iris’s expression.
For the first time that morning, she felt something she couldn’t explain.
Not fear.
Not sadness.
Something closer to recognition.
As though somewhere deep inside her heart...
she already knew that name.
She simply couldn’t remember why.
Outside the window, the morning breeze moved through the trees.
The sunlight continued to shine.
The world seemed peaceful.
But Iris couldn’t shake the feeling that her dream had not been an ordinary nightmare.
It felt like a memory.
A memory that belonged to someone she had once been.
And somewhere beyond that forgotten memory...
was a man named Akasa.
A man she had never met.
A man she somehow couldn’t forget.
Iris looked toward the window.
“I wonder who you are...”
She didn’t know it yet.
But that single question would change the course of her life.
