That night, Nathan barely slept.
He lay in bed beneath the glow-in-the-dark stars on his ceiling, listening—not with his ears, but with something deeper. Somewhere just beyond the silence, just past the ordinary sound of the ticking clock and the humming fridge, he felt the voice again.
"Come."
It was soft, like a breeze beneath a whisper. It didn't demand. It *invited.*
Nathan sat up slowly in the dark. The air in the room felt thick, like the moment before a thunderstorm. He tiptoed to the window and pushed it open. The rain had stopped. The world outside glistened under a thin veil of moonlight, everything silver and wet. The street was empty. The woods behind the houses stood quiet, but something about them felt different tonight.
Alive.
"Come," the voice repeated,not in his head—but not quite outside of it either. It was like the thought of someone else, hovering in the air just beyond his reach.
Nathan hesitated. His parents were asleep just down the hall. Their soft breathing, the familiar creak of the floorboards—this was his world. His *real* world. The one filled with bedtime stories, pancakes on Saturdays, and kisses on the forehead.
But something deeper stirred in him. A pull, like gravity in reverse.
His feet moved before he could reason with them.
He slipped out the back door in his pajamas and bare feet, the cold dew soaking through instantly. The grass brushed his ankles as he crossed the yard, then the fence, and then—
The woods.
They weren't far from the school. He'd seen them a hundred times. But tonight, they looked different. Older. As though they had shifted shape when no one was looking. The trees towered over him, their limbs twisted like they were whispering to each other.
He stepped forward.
The moment he did, a faint shimmer passed in front of him, like heat rising from pavement. He blinked, and for a second, he thought he saw a door—an archway formed of light and mist. It flickered like it didn't belong in this world.
And then it was gone.
"Not yet," the voice murmured. "But soon."
A shadow moved behind the trees. Not a person—*something else.* Too tall. Too still. It stood between two trunks, watching. Waiting. Nathan's breath caught, and for the first time since the voice called to him, he felt fear.
A soft crack sounded beneath his foot. A twig.
The thing moved.
Nathan turned and ran.
He didn't stop until he was back in his bed, chest heaving, blankets pulled up to his chin. His heart thundered in his ears, but the voice was silent now. Faded like a dream.
The next morning came as if nothing had happened.
Sunlight poured through the windows. His mother called him down for breakfast. His father ruffled his hair like always. The world was normal again—but Nathan wasn't.
He walked to school with his backpack bouncing, but the memory of the woods clung to him like fog. At recess, he didn't sit under the oak tree. He didn't dare go near it. Something had been watching him. *Something had called him.*
But he also knew something else—something he couldn't admit out loud:
That voice hadn't just been in his head. It came from beyond this world.
And it would call him again.