Alina didn't sleep well that night. Not because of the dream alone—it was the silence afterward that pressed against her chest. She kept turning, pulling the blankets tighter around her, as if the warmth could push away the memory of those walls, the figure reaching out.
Breakfast was awkward. Elina was quiet, distant, glancing at her only when necessary. Alina tried to laugh, to make conversation, to fill the space with something normal. But it felt hollow. She could see it in Elina's eyes: that weight the dreams had left behind.
"I don't understand," Alina said, trying to sound casual. "It's just a dream, right? Nothing real."
Elina didn't answer immediately. She just looked at her sister, calm but unshaken. "It felt… real."
Alina frowned. She wanted to argue, but the memory of that cold touch—the ring—made her pause. The pull wasn't just in her hand anymore. It lingered in her chest, in her mind. She had felt it again in her sleep.
The day moved slowly. Classes at the university, paperwork, emails—none of it could drown out the strange sensation that had followed her from the museum. It wasn't fear exactly, not yet. It was recognition. Something remembered, something waiting.
Alina walked through the corridors, noticing details she never would have before. A scratch on a door frame, the hum of the fluorescent lights, the way a shadow lingered longer than it should. She kept telling herself she was imagining it. She couldn't convince herself completely.
Later, in the library, she pulled Elina aside. "Lina, seriously… you felt it too, didn't you? That… pull from the ring?"
Elina's eyes met hers, steady, unflinching. "I did."
Alina swallowed hard. For a moment, she wanted to laugh, to say it didn't matter. But she couldn't. Something had shifted. The ring wasn't just an object in a display case. It was alive, and it remembered them.
"You think it… started something?" Alina asked.
Elina nodded slowly. "I know it did."
Alina's chest tightened. She wanted to fight, to make jokes, to ignore it. But deep down, she knew the truth: from the moment their fingers touched it together, the world had changed.
And no amount of hope would erase that pull.