Chapter 4: The Shadows of Nyxterra

That night, Lyra’s dreams felt like something more than just the usual haze of her unconscious mind. From the moment she closed her eyes, she was drawn into a different place—one far from the bright, bustling metropolis of Elysium. The dream unfolded slowly, its details creeping into her senses until she could no longer tell if she was asleep or awake.

Lyra stood at the edge of a world draped in perpetual twilight. The sky above her was neither day nor night, but something in between, with an eerie, purplish hue that cast long shadows over the landscape. The air was thick, almost oppressive, and the silence was unnerving. No sound of traffic, no distant hum of technology, nothing but a stillness that made her feel like she was walking through a forgotten graveyard.

She looked around, her heart beating faster as the realization sank in: this was **Nyxterra**. The place she had only heard whispered rumors about, a world where lost memories supposedly went to die. It was said that those who wandered too far into the shadows of Nyxterra rarely came back. The city itself was a labyrinth of half-formed structures, their outlines blurred as though they were fading in and out of existence, forgotten by time and memory.

In the dream, Lyra wandered through the streets, the dark, twisting alleys pulling her deeper into the heart of the city. Every corner she turned felt familiar, yet she had never been here before. The sensation was disorienting, like walking through the ghost of a place she once knew but couldn’t quite remember.

There was a faint light up ahead, flickering like a distant beacon in the fog. It was the only source of brightness in this otherwise dark world, and Lyra felt herself drawn to it. She moved forward, her feet almost moving on their own as if some invisible force was guiding her. The light seemed to call to her, urging her onward through the winding streets of Nyxterra.

The shadows around her deepened, and with every step, she felt like something was watching her from the darkness. She couldn’t see anyone, but the sensation was undeniable—the hair on the back of her neck stood on end, and her pulse quickened. Despite the fear gnawing at the edges of her mind, Lyra pressed on, her gaze fixed on the light that was growing brighter as she neared it.

Eventually, she turned a corner and found herself standing in front of a bridge. It stretched out over a vast chasm, disappearing into the thick fog that seemed to swallow everything in the distance. And there, at the very edge of the bridge, stood **Elias**.

He was just as she remembered him—tall, with those storm-gray eyes that seemed to see right through her. His presence in the dream was unsettling yet comforting at the same time, like a puzzle piece that fit but didn’t quite belong. He looked at her with a mixture of sadness and something else—longing, perhaps, or regret.

Lyra hesitated, her feet rooted to the ground as she struggled to find her voice. “Who are you?” she finally asked her voice barely above a whisper, trembling as she spoke the words.

Elias didn’t answer right away. He stood there, his gaze fixed on her as if weighing whether or not to tell her the truth. After a long pause, he spoke, his voice soft but filled with a gravity that sent a shiver down Lyra’s spine.

“You’ve forgotten,” he said quietly. “But you’ll remember soon.”

His words struck something deep inside her, like a bell ringing in the depths of her mind. Forgotten? What had she forgotten? Lyra’s heart pounded as she tried to process what he was saying. It didn’t make sense—how could she forget something so important, something that involved him, a man she didn’t even know? Or did she know him?

Before she could respond, before she could demand answers, the dream began to shift.

The world around her blurred, and the ground beneath her feet gave way. In an instant, Lyra was falling—plummeting through the air as the sky and the city of Nyxterra faded into a vast, empty void. Her stomach lurched, and she reached out, desperately trying to grab hold of something—anything—but there was nothing there. Just the endless darkness swallowing her whole.

She screamed, but no sound came out. The void pressed in on her from all sides, suffocating and cold. She could feel her mind unraveling, losing all sense of time and space, as if she was falling not just through the dream, but through her memories—through fragments of her life that had been buried so deep, even she had forgotten them.

Then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the fall stopped.

Lyra jolted awake, her heart racing, her body drenched in cold sweat. She sat up in bed, gasping for air, her hands trembling as she tried to steady herself. The room around her was dark, but the familiar outlines of her apartment slowly came into focus. The soft hum of the city outside her window reminded her she was still in Elysium, still in her world.

But the dream... it had felt so real. More real than any memory dive she had ever experienced. The details of Nyxterra, the weight of the air, the feel of the ground beneath her feet—it had all been so vivid as if she had been there. And Elias... his face lingered in her mind, his words echoing in her ears.

“You’ve forgotten, but you’ll remember soon.”

Lyra rubbed her hands over her face, trying to shake off the lingering feeling of the dream. It wasn’t just a dream. She knew that now. Elias was real. Nyxterra was real. And somehow, both were connected to her in ways she couldn’t yet understand.

She glanced at the clock on her bedside table—it was just past 3 a.m. She wouldn’t be able to sleep again, not after that. Her mind was spinning, and all she could think about was the dream and the overwhelming sense that this was no ordinary case. Elias wasn’t just a figment of her imagination, and the dream hadn’t been a product of her subconscious. It had felt like a message, a warning.

But from who? And why did she feel like she had known Elias her whole life?

Lyra swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up, her body still shaking from the intensity of the dream. She had to figure this out. There was no turning back now.