CHAPTER 36 – The Dream in the Dark

  Sleep came slowly.

  The forest outside Stover Creek Shelter whispered and shifted, every branch creak and flutter of wings stirring Fleta into half?dreaming, half?waking states. But eventually she drifted, the creek’s steady murmur pulling her under like a lullaby made of running water.

  And then—

  Darkness. A hallway. Carpet worn thin in the center where footsteps had paced for years.

  Fleta stood barefoot at one end, small again—too small. Her pack was gone. Her journal gone. Even her strength felt stripped away, like she had stepped backward into an older version of herself.

  The hallway smelled like it always had: old smoke, stale anger, something metallic she never could name.

  The lights flickered overhead.

  And from the far room, she heard the voice.

  Not loud. Not shouting. Just sharp enough to freeze the air.

  “Where have you been?”

  Fleta’s pulse stuttered. She tried to answer, but the words stuck in her throat. She took a step back, then another, her heel bumping the wall behind her.

  The house seemed to shift with her—walls stretching, shadows bending toward her like they remembered every mistake she’d ever been accused of.

  “You think you can just leave?”

  The door at the far end opened a crack. A sliver of hallway light traced the edge of the figure inside. Not clear. Not specific. Just presence—heavy, familiar, smothering.

  Fleta shook her head. “I didn’t mean—”

  But her voice came out thin, child?small.

  The figure stepped closer. The air tightened.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  “You never learn.”

  Something in Fleta’s chest collapsed inward. That sentence had lived inside her for years, carved deep like a scar that never fully closed.

  She backed away until her shoulder blades hit the door behind her. The wood was cold. Unmoving. Trapping.

  The figure kept coming—slow, inevitable, like the shadow of a storm rolling across land too flat to hide in.

  Her breath hitched.

  “I’m on the trail,” she whispered—to herself, to the dream, to the darkness swallowing her. “I left. I left.”

  But the hallway only stretched longer, swallowing her words whole.

  “You always come back,” the voice insisted. “You always break.”

  And that was when the dream cracked.

  The walls shook. The floorboard beneath her feet split down the center. Light—blinding, golden, impossible—poured through the gap like sunrise forcing its way in.

  The voice behind her faltered.

  The house trembled again, this time like it was losing its grip on her.

  Through the widening light, Fleta saw trees—tall, green, alive. A glimpse of the trail, winding forward. A sliver of sky.

  Springer Mountain’s summit stone flashed in her mind.

  Her hand on the plaque. The warmth spreading through her palm. The promise she’d whispered: I’m really doing this.

  Fleta reached toward the crack of light.

  The shadow lunged.

  But this time she didn’t freeze.

  She stepped through.

  The darkness behind her howled, then crumpled like paper swallowed by flame.

  And the world went white.

  Fleta jolted awake.

  Cold air kissed her face. The creek murmured in the dark. Jess was snoring softly. Marco’s sleeping bag rustled. Riley shifted, murmuring a half?dreamed word she couldn’t make out.

  Fleta pressed a hand to her chest.

  Her heart was pounding—but she was here. In her sleeping bag. In the shelter. On the trail.

  Not in that house. Not in that hallway. Not trapped.

  The forest breathed around her—deep, steady, alive.

  Slowly, her heartbeat matched its rhythm.

  Step. Breath. Step. Breath.

  She closed her eyes again—not to escape the dream, but to stay with the truth of where she was.

  The trail was real. Her escape was real. Her steps forward were real.

  And the mountains, vast and watchful outside the shelter door, felt like they whispered back to her:

  You’re not going back.