Her breath stilled.
She wasn't alone.
The realization pressed against her skin like cold air before a storm.
The waves still roared below, the wind still whispered around her, but something had shifted. The night no longer felt empty.
Slowly, she turned.
A figure stood at the edge of the darkness, just beyond the reach of the moonlight.
Still. Silent.
Watching.
The way he stood, the way the night wrapped around him, it stirred something deep in her chest. A feeling she couldn't name. A familiarity she didn't want to acknowledge.
Her fingers tightened around the letter. "Who…?"
The question barely left her lips before the figure stepped forward.
A fleeting glimpse.
Sharp features. A gaze like steel. A presence that felt heavier than it should.
Then, the moonlight shifted, and his face slipped back into the shadows.
Her stomach twisted.
Something about him, about this, felt too real, too close, like a memory that didn't belong to her yet still lived somewhere in the depths of her mind.
"You're leaving."
The words weren't a question.
They were a statement. A knowing.
She grip on the letter tightened. "Yes."
A pause. The figure tilted his head slightly, as if studying her. "And you think that will change anything?"
The way he said it, it felt like a challenge.
"I don't want to change anything," she answered, voice firm. "I just want to see what's beyond this place."
Another silence. The kind that carried weight, as though something unseen lingered between them.
Then.
A low chuckle.
Cold. Familiar.
"Spoken like someone who still has something to prove."
Her pulse spiked.
She hated the way his words curled around her like smoke, slipping into the spaces she thought she had locked away.
She forced herself to stand taller. "I don't need to prove anything to you."
The figure was quiet for a moment. Then.
"Don't you?"
The question struck deeper than it should have.
Her breath hitched.
No.
No, she didn't know him.
She had never met him before.
And yet.
The weight of his presence. The sharpness of his words.
It felt like something she had lived through before.
Like something she had left behind.
She took a slow step back.
"This is just a dream," she whispered, as if saying it aloud would make it true.
The figure exhaled, a sound that was almost a sigh, almost amused.
"A dream?" he repeated, voice softer now. "Maybe."
The wind stirred again, pulling at her clothes, at her hair.
The night felt colder.
And then, just as she blinked.
He was gone.
The cliffside was empty.
The air rushed back into her lungs, sharp and sudden, as if she had been holding her breath without realizing it.
Her heart pounded against her ribs.
She was alone again.
And yet.
Something lingered.
A whisper not from him, but from somewhere else.
Soft. Faint. Carried by the wind.
"We will be here."
Her stomach tightened.
The words sent a shiver through her, not in fear but in something far more unsettling.
Not a warning. Not a promise.
Somewhere in the distance, beyond what she could see or understand.
She closed her eyes, inhaling deeply, trying to steady herself.
When she opened them again, the moon seemed brighter, the ocean darker. The wind was softer now, almost lulling her into something close to calm.
She took a step forward, closer to the edge of the cliff.
She could still hear the echo of that voice from the wind but it was no longer pressing against her mind. Instead, it settled in the space between her thoughts, lingering like an unfinished sentence.
She didn't know what it meant.
Didn't know if she wanted to.
Her fingers traced the edge of the envelope she still held, the weight of it suddenly heavier than before.
She was leaving.
She had already decided.
But standing here, with the salt in the air and the whispers in the wind.
She wondered if a part of her would always stay behind.
But as she turned away from the ocean, walking back toward the path that would lead her home.
She felt it again.
Not the presence of the stranger. Not the whisper in the wind.
Something else.