Eternal Echoes: A Dance with Darkness

“Ember? Are you feeling alright?”

“Y-yeah…” I replied sheepishly.

“Are you sure?” She questioned, looking at me skeptically. “You are very pale now.”

“I’ll tell you about it later…” I said, unable to comprehend what was going on. I figured I could at least catch a glimpse of the guy to dismiss the thought that sprang to mind.

Sara leaned over the table after a few minutes and started speaking quietly. “Don’t you want to take a look at the guy?”

“Of course I do.” I quietly admitted.

“You better hurry. I think he might leave soon.”

Following her advice, I took a deep breath before casually dropping my knife to the floor. As I leaned over to pick it up, I stole a glance at the person nearby. His face took my breath away, with beautiful eyes that seemed to pierce through me as a smirk played on his lips. Quickly tearing my gaze away, I turned to Sara with urgency in my voice.

"We need to leave," I said earnestly, my heart racing.

"Why?" Sara asked, confusion evident in her voice as I hastily gathered my belongings.

“No, no, no, no…. This isn’t happening…” I threw some money on the table and grabbed my things.

“Ember, calm down and wait for me!” Sara called after me, quickly grabbing her things.

I hurried out of the diner, deliberately avoiding the man who had unsettled me. Despite my efforts to shake off the encounter, I couldn't escape the sensation of his eyes following me.

As Sara and I stepped outside, I quickened my pace, leaving her struggling to keep up. She called out to me, demanding an explanation. "Ember, slow down! What happened back there? Ember, please wait!"

I was determined to keep moving forward without stopping to talk. Despite my efforts to hold onto my doubts, deep down, I knew that what I had just witnessed was undeniably true.

"Sara!" I heard Sara call out, her voice filled with urgency as she grabbed my arm. "Who was that?"

I came to a halt and paused to take a deep breath. "Last night, I had a dream that a man who looked strikingly similar to the one we just saw... The resemblance is uncanny..." A sharp pain began to throb in my head as I tried to make sense of it all. "I usually have the same recurring nightmare with the shadow man chasing me, but last night, that man from the diner was there. He saved me from him..."

Sara’s eyes looked like they were about to pop out of her head. “That… That is very strange…”

My heart kept racing as I remembered the dream; his eyes.

“Normally, I would say that maybe it was only a coincidence…” Sara began, “But I don’t think coincidences happen with you very often…” She noticed the look on my face and added, “No offense.”

“I figured as much…” I replied with a groan.

“Well, maybe… Maybe we should go back and ask him about it?” Sara suggested eagerly, her voice filled with enthusiasm.

The thought of this terrified me. If he was real… then that would mean the shadow man was real also.

“If I was to do as you said, what would I even say? ‘I’m sorry to bother you, but I had a dream about you last night, and you saved me from an evil shadow man named Lucien.’ Do you know how crazy that sounds?”

Sara giggled. “You’re right, but I think it would still be worth a shot. Either way, it is a very creative pick-up line.”

I rolled my eyes at my friend. “To be honest, at first I thought you might’ve seen Easton.”

“See, I think we should go ask him about this stuff. There definitely has to be something going on.”

There was something undeniably wrong with this entire situation. I looked into the faces of the passersby and realized I still could not hear what they were thinking. He had to be following us. But I didn’t feel like we were in danger. “Well, we won’t have to go back to the diner to ask.” I remarked.

Sara looked at me questioningly.

“He’s been following us since we left the diner.”

Sara spun around on her heel to see. “How do you know? I can’t see anyone.”

“Because I still don’t have my telepathy.”

“What do we do?” She asked nervously. Losing all her nerve from earlier.

“We go to the park and wait for him to show,” I stated with dread. “He obviously wants to talk or have some type of interaction… He’ll eventually come up to me.

As we walked towards the park, a heavy silence hung between us. The clock had struck six, and the biting winter air seemed to pierce through our jackets as we settled onto a bench. Our bodies shivered involuntarily, our breath forming clouds in the freezing weather. The snow fell steadily, adding to the thick blanket already covering the ground.

Despite the cold, we sat in silence, our eyes scanning the park for any sign of Aiden. People who noticed us, stared as if we were lunatics for sitting out in the freezing weather. But after less than half an hour of waiting, the cold became unbearable, and we could no longer ignore it.

“Ember, I don’t know how much longer I can wait. I can not feel my nose, fingers, or my toes!” Sara stated through chattering teeth.

“Ok,” I stated while staying on the bench. “Why don’t you go get us some coffee or hot chocolate across the street and warm up?”

“What about you?” she asked.

“I won’t be too far behind you,” I replied. I had a sneaking suspicion that Aiden wouldn’t approach me with Sara near me.

I could see that Sara was torn between waiting for me and leaving.

“Sara, go! It’s fine.” I giggled.

She didn’t wait for any more explanations as to why I wasn’t going with her as she scurried across the street.

I sat waiting for my hero to show his face. Ten minutes passed by and the snow grew denser when I finally decided he wasn’t going to approach me, or rather, I wasn’t going to wait in the weather any longer.

“You’re going to catch pneumonia sitting out in this weather, my love.”

I was taken aback, my stomach dropping and a wave of nausea washing over me for a brief moment as my eyes widened in surprise. I turned my head sharply in the direction of the voice that had startled me. It was Aiden. I studied him intently - his shaggy black hair mostly hidden under a beanie, his greenish-yellow eyes just like in my dream, and a smile on his face that revealed perfectly white teeth.

“You’re the one who took your time to come talk to me,” I finally stated once I caught my breath.

Aiden smirked at my quip.

“How–”

“Am I here?” He finished my question. “I’ve always existed, Ember. The reason you had not seen me before last night is because I had finally found you.”

“How did you find me? What do you want? Why doesn’t my telepathy work when you’re around? Why are you here? Is that shadow man, Lucien, real?” All of these burning questions flooded out of my mouth.

“Whoa, calm down, love,” Aiden responded, drawing closer to me. “We have plenty of time to talk about everything.” He placed his hand on my cheek, stroking it with his thumb. This gesture, coupled with his affectionate gaze, and smile made me feel comforted.

Normally, I hate it when people touch me, but there was something about his touch that made me feel at ease. As Aiden gazed into my eyes, my heart raced and my stomach fluttered. There was a longing in his eyes, a desire that I couldn't quite comprehend at that moment. It felt familiar, reminiscent of the connection I had sensed between Sara and Easton earlier that day.

Silently, we stood locked in a gaze, the world around us fading into the background. Time seemed to freeze, leaving us suspended in a moment of shared intensity. When we finally snapped back to reality, we must have appeared like two statues, frozen in time amidst a flurry of snow.

His gaze abruptly shifted towards the coffee shop where Sara was, and he leaned in close to whisper in my ear, "I'll meet you at your place tonight. Just you, okay?"

“How do you know where I live?” I asked, but he only smiled in return.

Before leaving, he planted a kiss on my cheek. My face flushed with warmth as I watched him disappear into the darkness of the night.

“Did he ever show up?” Sara walked up without me noticing, making me jump.

“Yeah…”

“What did he say?” She questioned excitedly.

“Nothing really…”

Her expression twisted in disappointment, “Seriously?”

After taking a moment to reflect, I announced, “I think I’m going to head home.”

Sara's response was filled with concern. "Are you sure? Do you want me to come with you?”

"No, I think I just need to get some rest," I explained. "Today has been incredibly draining. I can barely even think straight anymore."

"Alright," Sara said, offering me a comforting hug. "I'll see you tomorrow after work then."

I knew I could have confided in Sara about the true reason I wanted to be alone, and I was confident she would have been understanding. However, at that moment, I simply wasn't ready to delve into the details with her. I did not know enough about what was happening to explain everything.