The Dream of the Gate

 
She didn’t remember falling asleep.

Only that she was elsewhere.

The desk was gone. The Hollow was silent.

She stood beneath a sky that wasn’t sky—just layered glyphs folding endlessly into black.

Before her: a gate. Incomplete. Spinning slowly in fractured geometry.

It pulsed not with light, but with invitation.

She didn’t move. But the gate did.

Its fragments rotated inward—each etched with glyphs she hadn’t written yet.

Each one resonated with something inside her.

Something waiting to be called.

She heard no voice. But she understood.

The Hollow didn’t open with force.

It opened with recognition.

And then—just before the gate began to turn—

she saw her.

A small figure in the distance.

Blue hair. Black dress.

Still. Watching.

Gone.

Lyra didn’t move.

She didn’t write it down.

She wasn’t sure she was meant to.

As the dream began to dissolve, she saw something impossible:

a figure on the other side of the threshold.

Not watching. Not waiting.

Becoming.

She woke before it turned fully toward her.

But part of her remained on the other side—drawn forward by a truth not yet spoken.

> The Hollow doesn’t hunt. It waits.