Halls of Splintered Souls (Wandering Souls #1)

Chapter Fifteen

I woke up with a start. I looked over at Padma's bed to find Ayn still asleep. No. It couldn't be.

I jumped over to her side and shook her, panicking. "Ayn, Ayn, wake up."

For a few seconds nothing happened. My blood ran cold as fear made creep its way inside my heart. She didn't respond as I kept shaking her awake. Then, she frowned and mumbled with her eyes still closed.

"I don't think the spell worked."

I sighed in relief. I thought that somehow, she was stuck in the dream. The memory of it sent shivers down my spine. Baekhyun... did he really do it? And who was that man?

"Why? You don't remember anything from the dream?" I asked her.

Ayn sat up then rubbed her eyes. She looked at me and shrugged. How could she not remember what happened? Was it really her in the dream or was that just something my brain made up?

"Not... really?" Ayn got up and fixed her hair in the mirror. "I guess it's one of those nights where I have a normal dream, ironic."

Maybe my brain just made up all that stuff after all. I tried to remember every detail in the dream. My accident... did it have anything to do with all this somehow? With the curse put on my mother's family?

"Ayn, do you remember that accident?" I asked her.

Ayn stopped looking at the mirror and walked back to the bed, her expression was somber as she sat next to me. She was the one who found me. If it weren't for her, I'd be dead.

"Of course, I do," she replied, her mood seemed to be changing, "I just... I just knew somehow. I looked for you everywhere but you weren't there. And then I felt suffocated, like I was drowning. I think I told Dad that you were drowning, but I... I didn't actually see you. And it felt like I was going to lose you. I felt weak. I felt like I was losing my power somehow."

"You never told me this," I said as I took her arm to hold her.

"Ow!" Ayn pulled her arm away, rubbing it. "Why does my arm hurt?"

Ayn pulled back her sleeves to find a bruise there. My heartbeat quickened as I realized that that was the exact spot where I pulled her arm in the dream. It seemed too connected to just be a coincidence. Moreover, she had no bruise before she went to sleep last night.

"Ayn," I called her to get her attention, "what do you remember from your dream?"

She looked at me curiously then replied. "I just remembered dreaming of that place that I thought before as a part of the spirit realm, some kind of market. It was probably just a suggestion because I was thinking of it as I was falling asleep."

I gulped. No, she had that part right. "Were you fighting with someone? A man?"

"How... how did you know?" Ayn frowned at my question.

"I guess the spell worked after all."

Her eyes widened in disbelief. She must not have expected for it to actually work. And it meant that all these years, her dreams weren't just dreams. They were real, in a way.

"No way," she whispered, covering her face with her hands, "what else do you remember?"

"Well, at first I wasn't with you. Then, I heard this voice that reminded me to look for you and suddenly I was there in the market. The place felt like magic. I saw you with that man, but you didn't seem to know I was there even though I was pulling your arm really hard to get you away from him." I pointed at her bruise. "That arm."

"Did you see what he looked like?" she asked, voice filled with anticipation but also a hint of nervousness.

I shook my head. "No, but... he told me to tell you something."