I remain trapped in this strange place—a dream, perhaps, or another reality where my own body betrays me. 

After a brief encounter with the mysterious lady in pink, the castle walls dissolve around me, and suddenly I’m wandering a medieval village square. Men in leather jerkins and women in long skirts brush past me, their faces alight with purpose. Their laughter reaches me like music from another room—close enough to recognize but too surreal to join.

Part of me longs to reach out, to touch someone’s sleeve and be welcomed into their circle of belonging. Yet I can’t control my own thoughts, feelings and action. The overcast sky mirrors my confusion. I walk among them now, no longer observing but participating, though reluctantly. And there is a girl accompanies me—her face a blur like everything else. She hovers protectively, anticipating my needs before I voice them. Her presence both comforts and suffocates me. Our cloaks mark us as different—mine a rich crimson that draws eyes, hers a humble brown that lets her fade into shadows. We navigate narrow streets together, and though surrounded by normalcy, a profound sadness wells within me. I crave solitude yet dread being alone.

My feet pull me forward through the cobblestone streets while I want to linger. Yet I feel like I should find something , a place? a person? I don’t know, but there’s a sense of urgency, and constantly looking for something which I, too, can’t even explain.

“My lady, where are we going exactly? It’s too dangerous,” the girl whispers, her face a smudge in my vision. I want to answer her, but how can I when I’m fighting myself at every step?

Suddenly, I heard my own voice coming out my own mouth,

“I don’t know, I need to find it”

“But what’s it, My lady?”

SILENCE ….

The scene dissolves like water colors bleeding together, and I find myself in a small stone chamber with a single arched window. Moonlight spills across a wooden desk where my trembling hand clutches a quill pen. Ink smudges my fingertips and tears blur my vision as I scratch desperate words onto parchment. Though I cannot read what I’ve written, each stroke feels like opening a wound. With a guttural cry, I crumple the parchment, tearing it to shreds before casting the pieces through the window where they flutter like wounded moths into the darkness below.

The chamber melts away, and I stand alone in a vast garden. My white dress whispers against my skin, catching silver in the moonlight that bathes everything in ghostly radiance. Above me, stars pierce the indigo sky like countless watching eyes. I wander between roses whose petals appear almost blue in the night, past night-blooming jasmine whose scent hangs heavy in the air, and through archways of climbing wisteria. As I approach a marble fountain whose water gleams like liquid silver, a woman’s scream—high and desperate—cuts through the night, then vanishes as suddenly as if a door had been slammed shut.

The same night, I find myself drawn to the garden fountain like a moth to flame. My heart seizes mid-beat when moonlight reveals what lies there—a woman’s corpse sprawled across the stone, her dress saturated crimson-black, unrecognizable features twisted in a final scream. Blood cascades down the fountain tiers like a perverse waterfall.

I want to step closer, to see her face, but my body betrays me. My stomach convulses violently, acid surging up my throat. Terror grips every muscle, turning my limbs to ice then fire. I can’t breathe—can’t think—can’t scream. My legs spring into motion without permission, carrying me blindly into the darkness beyond the garden. Something follows—I feel it at my back—its breath on my neck, fingers almost grazing my hair. My lungs burn, shrinking to nothing as I flee deeper into the void, certain that if I stop, even for a heartbeat, I’ll never draw breath again.

And although I finally realize this is just a dream, every sensation burns through me like lightning—the smells searing my nostrils, sounds hammering my eardrums, terror clawing up my throat—as if I’m not merely witnessing but LIVING this nightmare in real time, trapped in its jaws with no escape.