15

  The days grew colder as December approached, and along with the chill came a quiet excitement—Finn’s sixteenth birthday was nearing, marked on the calendar with a small doodle his brother Maxi had made. Their family didn’t have extravagant celebrations, but there was always something warm in the way they shared meals, laughter, and a simple cake their father baked the night before.

  Yet, as the date drew nearer, something else began to happen.

  Finn started dreaming—not just dreams, but visions so clear they lingered after waking.

  He saw a world unlike his own: wide kingdom fields where golden wheat swayed in the wind, rivers shimmering with silver fish, white cranes taking flight. Towering castles rose with stone spires glowing beneath warm sunlight. And deep within a forest, there stood a castle made of living wood, its walls intertwined with vines and growing branches.

  Children played in its courtyards—laughing, running, training with wooden swords. Their tunics were of green and gold, and on every wall of their great hall was a tree emblem, its roots and branches forming a circle.

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Finn felt peace there.

  Like he belonged.

  But the dream always changed.

  The sky darkened.

  The rivers dried.

  The birds disappeared.

  The wooden castle rotted into ash.

  The spires of stone crumbled and fell.

  An entire world… decayed.

  Finn would wake gasping, heart pounding, sweat chilling his skin.

  Almost every night.

  And always—

  At the very end—

  He saw Alice.

  She stood at the corner of his room, beside the window, her weathered hands clasped in front of her. Her eyes—deep, sad, wise—watched him with a knowing tenderness. But when Finn blinked, sat up, or tried to speak her name, she vanished into the shadows.

  Only silence remained.

  Each time, Finn remembered the ring she had given him.

  He would reach for it on his bedside table, cold against his trembling fingers.

  The ring had once seemed rusted and old—but under the moonlight, it glimmered faintly, as though something inside it lived. The patterns on it were strange, looping in runes he didn’t know—yet now, in his dreams, they felt familiar.

  One night, he sat up and examined the ring closely.

  And his breath caught.

  There on the ring was the same emblem from the hall in his dreams—

  A tree, its roots spreading downward like veins, its crown of branches reaching upward like stars.

  Finn’s fingers trembled as he traced it.

  His heartbeat echoed in his ears.

  This isn’t coincidence.

  This means something.

  Maxi continued sleeping soundly beside him, unaware.

  But Finn’s world—quietly, slowly—had begun to shift.

  And whatever waited behind those dreams…

  was getting closer.