The nights in the neighborhood had always been a cruel reminder of the misery in which Kael was trapped. Distant screams, the echo of gunshots lost in the darkness and the stench of smoke and blood were part of his reality. Somewhere in his childhood, however, the shadows of the night began to give way to something new.
At first, it was just murmurs, soft voices dancing at the edges of his consciousness as he slept. He did not understand the words, but he felt their meaning echoing deep within him. They were not commands or warnings, but a call. A melancholy whisper that dragged him to a place he did not know, but which seemed strangely familiar.
Then, the dreams came.
In them, Kael found himself in a vast starry sky, suspended in an ocean of twinkling lights. In front of him, a silhouette shrouded in a silvery glow stood with a majestic presence. He could not see her face clearly, but he knew it was a woman. Her hair floated like threads of moonlight and her eyes, though distant, seemed to watch him with a mixture of sadness and longing.
"Kael..."
Her voice echoed in his mind, like an echo of something that had always been there, waiting to be remembered. Every night, the woman would come a little closer. Sometimes, she would stretch out a hand towards him, as if reaching for him, but always, just before she touched him, he would wake up with his heart pounding furiously in his chest.
At first, he thought these were simply nightmares or delusions caused by hunger and exhaustion. But as the dreams became more frequent, he realized that they were not his imagination. There was something real in them. Something calling to him from deep within his soul.
Eventually, he began to notice signs even when he was awake. Shadows that moved with a distinct cadence, flashes of light in the corner of his eye, and a nagging sense that someone was watching him. The air around him felt thick, charged with an energy that no one else seemed to sense.
One night, as the neighborhood slept and the moon rose at its highest point, Kael awoke gasping for breath. This time, the dream had been different. The woman had not only spoken. She had spoken a name.
"Ixchel."
It was a name he had never heard, but when spoken aloud, it came as naturally to him as his own existence. Something inside him vibrated with an unknown intensity, as if a part of him that had been asleep was finally awakening.
From that night on, he knew that dreams were not just an illusion. They were a message. A promise. And, in a way, a warning.