Chapter One: The Dreamwood

No one expected anything that day. Not me, not her. We weren’t together—not yet—but the dream that had been pulling us both through sleepless nights finally rooted our steps in the same direction.

I drove three hours from Edmonton with nothing but coffee, a notebook, and the image of a pine tree sketched over and over in my dreams. She hiked in from the west, alone, humming a song she swore no one had ever taught her.

The woods of Alberta stood still. Timeless. Alive in that way old places get when no one’s looked too long. Birds didn’t sing. Wind didn’t stir. It was like time got shy.

And then we met—two strangers who felt like they were waking up from the same life. No introductions, no apologies, just eyes that knew. We didn’t question the surreal rhythm of it all—we followed it.

A magnetic pull drew us to an unremarkable patch of earth beneath a pine whose branches curled like spirals. She knelt first, fingers brushing the moss like a forgotten lover. Together, we dug, not with tools, but with reverent instinct.

And there it was. A steel capsule, aged and out of place, stamped with “1975.”

Inside?

An old photograph showing us—together. Dressed in 2025 fashion. Smiling under some future sky we hadn’t yet seen. Four smooth stones, each etched with shimmering, shifting symbols. A device pulsing faintly, not with power, but with recognition.

She gasped. I nearly dropped the stone in my hand.

In that moment, it happened.

The glyphs burned into our palms like they had always belonged there. Visions cascaded: battles fought in worlds not born, temples made of starlight, lifetimes flickering like flames—us, in different forms, always returning. And three others. Shadows becoming faces.

They were waiting.