She awoke in a forest she had never visited, trees swaying in a light wind, leaves whispering secrets. A man stood nearby—tall, with eyes she had seen only in dreams.


“Mara,” he said, voice trembling. “I’ve been waiting for you.”


He was real—or as real as anything here could be. Mara sensed he was another thread, a life she could have chosen. Yet his presence pulled at her heart in a way she had never known.


“You must learn,” he said, “that the darkness gives and the darkness takes. It reveals your possibilities—but it does not forgive your mistakes.”


He showed her the village he had built, a life of quiet peace, yet fraught with unspoken regrets. She understood then: the lives she could embrace were not perfect. They were mirrors, reflecting both desire and consequence.


A memory surfaced—a brother she had never known in this world, yet he felt real. She touched his face, and the world shifted. Threads of other lives twined around him, binding her understanding of responsibility, love, and loss.