Eleven hills (english edition)

I get out of the car, and for a moment the world stands still—not the way it stands still when you take a picture, but so still that I can hear my own heartbeat, loud and steady, as if it were trying to tell me something important. Before me lies the UCLA campus, a network of sandstone, lawns, eucalyptus trees, staircases that rise into the air as if leading somewhere, somewhere you’ll stay. Students stream by: a voice still laughing, a backpack that seems too big. Everything is new, everything is possible. I take a deep breath. The air smells of sun and cigarettes, of coffee and bubble gum, of a city that never truly sleeps.

My parents say things that sound like anchors. “Call when you arrive.” “Take care, Hannah.” They hug me longer than necessary; incisions meant to seal the bond. I smile because I don’t want their eyes to get wet, and in that smile is a promise: I’ll make it. Nineteen, college student, Los Angeles—it sounds like a paragraph in a novel I haven’t written yet.

The first few days are a whirlwind of running around and lists. Orientation, registration, group photos that will already be yellowed after a semester. I store my nervousness in to-do lists and answer questions with the kind of self-assurance I haven’t yet given myself. In lectures, I sit at the front because I’m afraid of getting lost if I sit further back. There, amidst the hundreds, I listen to lectures on things I want to learn but don’t immediately understand. The professors speak with an authoritative calm; their voices are like seagulls over the sea—familiar yet distant.

Between these hours, another routine develops: the library at night. The Powell Library is a temple of oak and lamplight; the sounds of the city are caught within it as if in a net. When most students disappear, the night owls, the workaholics, remain. I love these hours because everything is reduced: just paper, the glow of a lamp, and the monotonous turning of pages. Here, the world is easy to understand—or so I pretend.

It was on one of those evenings in the library that I truly saw him for the first time. Not just as a face in the crowd, but as something clinging to the edge of my perception, like noticing a piece of fabric hanging on the corner of a table.

He sits a few tables away, dressed in black, with a notebook in front of him so worn that the edges are softer than the paper. He doesn’t seem to be trying to draw attention to himself. His posture is strangely alert, as if he were ready to get up or disappear at any moment. When he looks up, our eyes meet. It’s not a friendly look, not a curious one; more like the fleeting pause of a bird before it glides back on its way.

I force myself not to stare. Even so, I discover I see him quite often—at the edge of a lecture hall, next to a vending machine with cold Coke, in the dim shadows of a corridor. Never close enough, never enough words. He doesn’t speak; he observes. And yet there’s something about him that haunts me. Later, when I check my messages and read through the list of names I want to know, his doesn’t stand out: Dawson. A name as unassuming as his demeanor.

The dreams begin like tiny scratches in the glass of my everyday life—barely perceptible at first. I don’t take them seriously. A new city, new impressions, my mind quickly explains away images that have no place in a rational world. The first time, I’m standing on a hill, and mist rolls past my ankles like cold water. Above me, the sky is so low it threatens to drown my thoughts; it’s filled with a single, great, cold light that isn’t the sun, more like a star that doesn’t shine but observes. It’s beautiful and frightening at the same time. I wake up, my heart is racing, and I laugh because my mouth thinks it has to.

The dreams return.

At first, they are fragments: the hill, the line of mist, the coldness of the light. Then come voices, like truncated melodies, words without syntax. At one point, I think I hear my own name; at another, I think someone is standing beside me, so close that their breath touches my shoulder. Waking up is a sliding back into a world that suddenly feels lighter because the other world remains invisibly behind.

I don’t tell anyone about it. It’s embarrassing to have to explain that you have recurring dreams that don’t seem to be just dreams. Besides, I don’t think people would take it seriously. “You’re tired,” they’d say. Or, “Stress reaction.” Maybe they’d be right. Maybe I want the explanation because it puts my mind at ease.

Yet something clings to the dreams like dew to a blade of grass: familiarity. Not the shallow familiarity one says about new places, but something profound, like the knowledge of a melody one hums in one’s sleep because one once heard it. When I look out the window in the morning and the campus lies bathed in golden light, I have the feeling that the memory is already within me, like a word etched into the skin, one that cannot be fully read.

Dawson remains silent. Sometimes he sits closer than chance would allow one to believe. In a seminar, the speaker is talking about communication theory; I’m taking notes, but my thoughts are elsewhere. When I lift my head, he’s sitting there, a shadow at the side of the room, and for a split second I have the feeling he knows my dreams. It seems far-fetched, and yet there’s this slight tug in my chest.

One evening, as rain washed the library’s exterior and the lamps shone like flickering stars, I sat on the table with a cup of burnt coffee. The page of my script was damp with the mist pouring in through the door. Someone sat down opposite me without a word. I looked up—Dawson. He had opened his notebook, but wasn’t showing any pages. He looked as if he had seen the library with a different aura, one that only he could perceive.

“You work late,” I say, more as a statement than a question.

“Quiet is good for thinking,” he replies softly. His voice is deeper than I expected, and the word “thinking” carries a weight, as if he weren’t talking about lectures, but about something heavier.

“I call it survival,” I reply and smile, but the smile remains superficial.

I don’t tell him about the dreams. I don’t know if I want to. Instead, I watch him close the notebook. On the cover is a drawn circle with eleven dots—like a star, only different.

“Can I ask where you’re from?” I ask, because it’s easier to talk about trivial things.

He shrugs almost imperceptibly. “Not far.” It sounds distant, like a word that doesn’t originate from a specific city. “And you?”

“San Diego.” I add, “But that was years ago.” An unnecessary detail that softens my voice.

“Are you happy here?”

His question touches me in a way that reaches a distant part of me. Happiness isn’t the right word. I think of my parents, the expectations, the lists. I think of the dreams that gnaw at my soul.

“Sometimes,” I say. “Most of the time it’s rather… complicated.”

He nods, as if confirming something that needs no words. “Complicated is honest.” His eyes linger on my face for a moment too long, as if searching for a sign I’m not giving.

“Dawson,” I say. “Why…?” I stop because I don’t know how to finish the question.

“Why am I here so often?” he suggests. “Why am I observing?”

“Yes.”

He exhales. “Maybe I’m interested in things that others overlook,” he says simply. “Some people are more receptive to patterns.”

“Pattern?” I grope for an anchor. “Pattern of what?”

He smiles without humor. “It’s the way places breathe. The way they hold memories. Some places are like books that you close wrong – you don’t read them, and yet a page remains open. Other places call out.”

His gaze remains on me. “And sometimes,” he adds, “they call the same person.”

It’s a characteristic of sentences that suddenly sound crucial, even though they might not be. I have to laugh to fight off the fear that grips my throat like a cold hand. “So I am a place?”

“Not just that,” he says. “More like an echo.”

I sleep poorly that night. The images become more vivid. I see hills that jut out from the mist like the backs of ancient giants; a star that shines like an eye; shadows that are not quite shadows. Once in my dream I run my hand over rough rock, and when I wake up my hand is white with something that looks like powder. I rub it, but it is only my own heart working within my skin.

The next day, I walk across campus, the sun low over the rooftops. I feel like I’m slowing down, as if the world is moving on beside me and I’m tuned into a different frequency. People are talking, phones are ringing, but everything seems distant, like coming from a room with walls that are too thick. I start noticing things I wouldn’t have cared about before: the way moss grows on a wall, the small indentation on a step that, if you look closely, resembles a finger reaching for something.

In the cafeteria, I turn a corner and see him again – Dawson, in the queue, holding a lunchbox.

Our eyes meet, and he comes closer to say something. We line up next to each other as if the arrangement had been prearranged.

“I talked to you yesterday,” he says suddenly.

“Yes,” I reply, although I don’t know whether he’s making a reproach or an observation.

“I’ve been thinking,” he says. “About what you’re saying. About the dreams.”

My heart skipped a beat. “You have...?” I tried to sound calm, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask what he was thinking.

“Sometimes dreams aren’t mistakes,” he says slowly. “Sometimes they’re memories the brain can’t fully process. Sometimes they’re signals.”

“Signals of what?” I notice the words contracting, as if a hand were placed around them.

He looks at me, and now his gaze is resolute, as if he has decided to step closer, to speak something that has long lain dormant within him. “That there is another world that can reach people like us. That some people...” He makes a small, imprecise gesture with his hand. “...are sensitive to these cracks.”

Suddenly, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. The possibility that he thinks I’m crazy is suddenly less frightening than the fact that he might actually be right. “You seem to know that,” I say, hoping his reply will dry me off like a hairdryer.

“I know more than I’m allowed to say,” he replies. “Sometimes it’s hard to express things without them looking like stories.”

He walks away without me stopping him. I stand there a moment longer, holding my spoon, feeling the cold of the aluminum that pulls me back to the edge of reality. His face remains before my mind’s eye, as if painted on glass.

The days pass, and the dreams don’t become less frequent. They grow louder. I begin to see small patterns: a particular smell as the dream comes—burnt resin; a memory that returns fragmentarily: I’m holding something that looks like an amulet; someone calls my name, and the voice is familiar, as if it were my own. I wonder if I once had another life, or if my mind is playing tricks on me. Both feel equally possible.

One evening, as I unlocked the door to my dorm, my gaze lingered on the movement of the trees. They weren’t swaying, but I had the feeling they were listening. I switched on the light, and for a moment the room was normal: my bed, a poster, an open book. Then, as if there were a weight on the air, I felt it again—the watching. Not physical, no shadow, no sound. More like a pressure, a gaze resting directly behind me, so close that I felt my shoulders slump beneath it.

I turn slowly around. Nobody. Only the reflection in the window, where the city lights glimmer like distant stars. I laugh because laughter is easier than fear. But the laughter sounds hollow to my ears. I draw the curtains, as if fabric could create some kind of barrier.

I lie down. The lamp’s light casts a rectangle on the ceiling. I stare into it until my eyes grow heavy. The dreams don’t come immediately, but when they do, they are like floods crashing over a dike. This time the hill is closer; I can see the grain of a stone as if I had touched it yesterday. And in one part of the dream—so clear it makes my throat go dry—I hear a voice that is not my own thoughts, whispering my name with a tenderness that is both foreign and comforting. I lie still, absorbing the strange whispering without understanding the words.

When I wake, the morning sky above the rooftops is soft as wax paper. I sit upright, my heart racing. I don’t know if I’m dreaming or awake. My thoughts are restless, like a swarm of insects. Something is different than the day before, a subtlety that makes my insides vibrate. Someone or something has noticed my presence—not abstractly, not as a statistic, but personally. And it doesn’t seem to be entirely neutral. The feeling that settles over me like a cloak is neither purely threatening nor purely friendly; it is simply attentive.

I open the door, walk into the hallway, and on the way back to campus, I feel watched. Not by people, but by something else, smoother, sitting on the edge of perception. At the bus stop, I see people staring at their phones, a woman talking to a child, two men laughing loudly. All of this happens while I carry the weight of this observation like an extra layer of clothing.

In the afternoon I find Dawson in the library, in his usual seat. He barely looks up when I arrive, but when he sees me, there’s a kind of anticipation in his face, as if he’s waiting for a signal.

“You look tired,” he says, and this time it’s more of a statement than a question.

“It’s me,” I reply. I sit down opposite him. “I have the feeling I’m being watched.”

His eyes narrowed. “It’s not just you,” he said. “There’s something there that’s seeking attention. Sometimes it’s curious, sometimes… hungry.”

“Hungry?” I repeat, almost laughing, because the word is so big, clunky, and unsuitable.

“Hungry is perhaps too strong a word,” he says. “Let’s say: attentive and expectant.”

“Why me?” I ask, looking directly at him.

“Because you remember, more than you admit,” he replies. “Because you… are something this world doesn’t quite know yet.”

I leave the burning question inside me unspoken: Do you know this something? Are you part of it? Instead, I say: “Why do you say that?”

He opens his notebook, shows me a blank page, draws a circle with a pencil, and places eleven dots inside – exactly the same drawing I saw on its cover. “Because I’m prepared for it,” he says. “Not for everything, but for enough.”

I see the dots, and something stirs within me, like an agreement. It’s not clear knowledge, more of a pull. “What if I’m afraid?” I finally ask.

“Then tell me,” he replies. “Fear is not something you have to carry alone.”

His words are simple, but they sound like a promise, and I find that the promise makes me feel calmer. I smile weakly, and he smiles back, though his lips don’t really warm.

In the evening, I go out into the cool air. The palm trees trace patterns in the sky, and the ever-present scent of the city hangs in the air. I stop and turn slowly. For a moment—or a minute, or an eternity, I no longer know—I have the sensation that something is breathing directly behind me. Not physical, not warm. A cold breath that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I turn around. Nothing. Just the night, the trees, the diffuse light of the streetlamps.

I run up the stairs leading to the dorm, and suddenly the observation is so intense it feels like a second skin. I want to scream, want to wake someone, want to announce to the world that there’s something here that needs attention. But the voice remains inside me, small as a spark afraid to be lit.

As I unlock the door and enter my room, I switch on the light. The lamp casts its dim rectangle across the desk, and on the shelf, a shadow seems to tremble, as if it were breathing. I gasp. “This is ridiculous,” I mutter to myself, placing the keys on the table.

I sit on my bed and stare at the ceiling. The dreams had never given me a name, but suddenly everything I experience feels like preparation, as if something is lurking, waiting for my next move. Something that knows me. Something that is searching for me.

Out on campus, life continues as usual. Students laugh, couples share headphones, someone tosses a ball across the grass. And beneath this normal surface, something is stirring, invisible like a river under ice. At this moment, I don’t know whether to look forward to it or be afraid. I only know that the dreams remain, that Dawson isn’t just a silent observer, and that—strange as it sounds—an echo within me answers when the star shines in the dream.

Sitting by the window, my mind racing with the star pendant, I listen to the faint whisper hanging at the edge of my awareness. Someone—or something—is watching me. It’s not a final judgment, not even a clear threat. It’s simply attention. And attention carries weight. I feel it like a pressure on my chest, as if the world is testing me to see if I’m ready.