Chapter 3
Chapter Three
She froze mid-step, narrowly escaping the inevitable. The car sped past on its original course, its driver completely unaware of how close he had just come to causing a fatal accident.
With her heart hammering in her throat, her blood ran cold, and for a terrifying moment, she struggled to draw breath.
She crouched down, inhaling deeply in a desperate bid to steady her rattling nerves.
Glancing at her watch, she saw it was nearly eight in the morning.
With trembling hands, she pulled out her phone and dialed a familiar number.
“Amanda? It’s Augustine…” She forced her voice to sound calm, fighting the tremor in her chest. “Could you let the professor know I’m going to be a little late?
I almost got run over just a second ago…
No, no, I’m okay, really. Please just let her know, and text me if she’ll still allow me to take the exam late…
Thanks. Yes, I’m sure I’m fine. I should be there in about fifteen minutes. See you soon.”
She ended the call and pressed her palms over her eyes. Had it just been her panicked imagination, or had she truly heard a voice inside her head?
A few minutes later, Amanda’s reply flashed on the screen: “The professor was frantic about her star student, so just head on in whenever you get here.”
Hurrying toward the bus stop, Augustine’s mind raced, anxious over how little time she would have left to finish the test. She sat by the bus window with a furrowed brow, trying to recall the exact quality of that voice—where had she heard it before? It felt deeply, hauntingly familiar.
When she finally reached the university, she slipped into the classroom as quietly as possible.
Having known the professor since her freshman year—even serving as her teaching assistant—Augustine knew the woman's concern was genuine.
Their eyes met briefly, and the professor offered a relieved smile, gesturing toward the exam paper she had already set on the desk so Augustine could begin working immediately.
Try as she might, focus eluded her. The recurring mental image of the car tearing past her eyes, paired with the sudden realization of how abruptly her life could have ended, made her stomach churn.
That night, Augustine unlocked her front door with a numb, heavy mind. Dropping her bag onto the table, she collapsed onto the couch, utterly spent. She felt as though she could fall into a deep sleep right then and there.
After a few minutes of wrestling with her exhaustion, she forced herself up to tidy the apartment.
Normally, this was a part of her routine she genuinely enjoyed; she would put on some music, clear her head of worries, and lose herself in the simple, rhythmic chores of her small home.
But tonight, her spirit was completely gone.
Leaving the washing machine running, she resigned herself to the fact that the day wouldn’t get any more productive. Without even bothering to change out of her clothes, she crawled onto the mattress and collapsed.
She had only just closed her eyes when the night breeze nudged the curtains aside, casting a soft lunar glow across the room.
Flooding in with the timeless light came a luminous butterfly, fluttering restlessly through the shadows and leaving a delicate trail of silver in its wake.
After a moment of hesitation, it decided that Augustine’s nose was the perfect place to land.
She realized instantly that she was dreaming, but the nocturnal visitor didn’t shock her.
Somewhere deep within her mind, she recognized these recurring encounters.
Every so often, she experienced these vivid dreamscapes—profoundly real and charged with an intense emotional weight.
Yet, she would inevitably wake to find the memories clouded by a heavy veil, leaving her with nothing but a lingering sense of emptiness.
Sitting up in the dream, she gently offered her hand.
The butterfly proved docile, perching on her fingers as if settling onto a flower.
Augustine smiled, reaching out to brush its iridescent wings, but the creature was too quick, fluttering just out of reach.
A few feet away, the butterfly was suddenly enveloped by shimmering silver threads.
Within seconds, the light dissolved, revealing a young man who looked to be right around her own age.
Augustine felt a jolt of surprise, though it was softened by a strange familiarity. He wasn’t a complete stranger; on the contrary, she felt a powerful, innate certainty that he had visited her many times before. A wave of sweet nostalgia pressed against her chest.
She studied him in the quiet of the dream.
He was tall and athletic, his relaxed posture giving him an effortless command over the entire space.
His skin was strikingly pale, and his gray eyes reminded her of a full moon reflected on dark water—shining with a serene brilliance that felt dangerous yet calm all at once.
Thick strands of snow-white hair fell in a messy fringe over his forehead, making him look simultaneously endearing and arresting.
There was a clean, almost surreal beauty to his features that she found entirely irresistible, even if she felt ridiculous for analyzing a boy's looks in the middle of a dream.
He looked back at her with a blend of mischief and tenderness, clearly waiting to savor the shock on her face. But he wasn’t going to be the only one surprised tonight.
“Are you always this calm when butterflies turn into people?” he asked, a faint, amused curve touching his lips. “Or has wonder struck you completely mute?”
Augustine stood up, sauntering toward him, her heart hammering against her ribs at his sudden proximity.
“Alderian,” she murmured. She had no logical way of knowing his name, yet a delicious spark of recognition flared within her as the syllables left her tongue.
An expression of sudden alarm and raw fear fractured the young man's features, instantly wiping the smile from his face.
“You remember my name?” he whispered, his voice incredulous.
Before she could offer an answer, he vanished, fading as swiftly and silently as a dying sigh.
* * *
When the morning light woke her the following day, Augustine remembered the night's dream with unusual, startling clarity. There was no trace of the blurry haze that usually erased her memories of those lucid encounters.
Still heavy with sleep, she made her way toward the kitchen, but froze halfway there as a strange sight caught her attention.
A luminous, silver thread was emerging directly from her chest, stretching across the room until it lost itself in the opposite wall.
Rubbing her eyes in disbelief, she extended a trembling hand, tempted to touch it just to see if it would snap.
To her surprise, the strand felt warm and remarkably firm; she didn’t dare try to break it.
Was it possible she was still asleep?
The sudden ringing of her phone cut through the quiet, and she hurried into her bedroom to answer it.
“Augustine?”
Hearing her mother’s voice on the other end of the line brought an instant sense of grounding. “Hi, Mom,” she said, her eyes still locked onto the surreal thread that followed her every movement.
“Honey, I left some important documents at your place. I think they’re on top of the fridge. Could you check for me?”
She walked back into the kitchen to search, the thin Silver Thread floating weightlessly around her as she moved. “Aha, found them,” she confirmed, picking up her mother’s black leather folder.
“Could you bring them over today? I really need them. You can come by this afternoon if you’re busy right now.”
“I’ll come over right away. I’ll just take a taxi.” Augustine felt an urgent, desperate need to be surrounded by the familiar comfort of home.
Hanging up, she headed to the bathroom for a quick shower.
Standing before the mirror, she studied her naked reflection.
The silver cord was firmly anchored to her skin, shifting seamlessly with her movements and passing through solid matter without resistance.
How was any of this physically possible?
During the taxi ride to her parents' house, she noticed something that made her heart race: the driver had a Silver Thread of his own, identical to hers, though he seemed completely oblivious to its existence.
When she arrived, she found her father sitting on the living room sofa, sipping a cappuccino and reading the newspaper, just as he did every Saturday morning.
There was absolutely nothing extraordinary about the domestic scene—save for the thin Silver Thread emerging from his chest, drifting through the air like a strange, glowing umbilical cord.
“What is that?” she asked, trying to sound casual.
Her father looked up from his paper and smiled warmly, completely devoid of concern. “My little bunny! I didn’t hear you come in… I just made myself a cappuccino, do you want one?”
“I don’t mean the coffee, Dad. I mean the thing on your chest.”
He blinked, looking down and smoothing the front of his sweater. “What do I have? Did I stain myself?”
Augustine froze. Her father, entirely unaware of the whirlwind of panic brewing in his daughter’s mind, simply returned to the sports section.
At that moment, her twin brothers bounded down the stairs in their rugby uniforms, laughing and talking over one another.
They threw out a quick, collective “good morning” before rushing out the front door to practice.
From each of their chests, a vibrant Silver Thread emerged, trailing after them naturally into the street.
She briefly considered telling her mother, who was currently working in her home office, but the terrifying prospect of being looked at with concern—or, worse, with pity—stopped her cold. What if they thought she was finally losing her mind?