Chapter 185
Aurora’s PO.V
I woke up with a jolt, my body drenched in cold sweat. My heart hammered in my chest, and I was gasping for breath, the dark, suffocating feeling of my nightmare still lingering around me. My eyes darted around, but all I could see was blackness. No light, no sounds–just that endless void. Panic flooded through me, and I fought against the overwhelming sense of being trapped. I couldn’t let it take me again. I couldn’t stay in that place, that dark abyss.
I tried to stand, but something was different. My feet met solid ground. Soft, familiar ground. Slowly, I blinked, trying to make sense of it all. I wasn’t standing in the dark anymore. I wasn’t in the place I had been before. I was… lying down? My hands brushed over the fabric beneath me, and the realization hit me like a punch to the
gut.
This wasn’t my room.
I sat up, confusion clouding my mind. The room around me came into focus, a slow, creeping clarity. It was small, cozy, and had a certain warmth to it, something I hadn’t noticed before. There was a bedside table on the right, and on it–A picture. I froze, my breath catching in my throat. It was a picture of my mother. I could see her face clearly in the dim light. She was so much younger in that photo, smiling widely as if there was nothing in the world that could take that joy away from her.
Hastily, I looked around, finally realizing where I was as each piece of furniture, each corner of this room finally registered in my sub–consciousness.
And for a moment, I couldn’t breathe. This… this was my parents‘ room. How did I end up here? Why? How? When…?
I stood up quickly, my legs wobbling under the sudden weight of everything rushing back.
“No… this can’t be real,” I whispered to myself, my hands shaking. I looked around, my eyes frantic. Everything was so familiar, so vivid and realistic. But how could this even be possible? Caleb told me my house was gone…
I touched the bed, the soft, plush comforter my mother used to insist on. I closed my eyes for a second, trying to steady my breathing. But the panic was still there, clawing at me. “How am I here? I mumbled under my breath, my voice cracking. I needed answers, but it felt like the more I searched for them, the further they slipped away.
I reached for the picture, picking it up carefully. The edges were a little worn, as if it had been handled many times, but the image was still clear. My mother’s smile. Her eyes. I could almost hear her laughter echoing in the back of my mind. But this couldn’t be a memory. This felt… too real. I glanced around the room again, trying to make sense of what was happening.
My heart ached with a strange sense of loss. “Mom?” I whispered softly. But there was no answer.
I looked around the room, trying to make sense of it. The walls, the furniture–all of it felt so familiar, yet distant. There, to my left, was a closet. A simple one, nothing extraordinary, but it caught my eye. I couldn’t help but wonder what it contained, but I knew better than to go looking, unsure of what I would find.
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Chapter 185
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