Alina woke with the sunlight slanting across her face, warm and unrelenting. She wanted to stretch, laugh, shake off the residue of last night's dream—but it was already there, lingering, like a shadow at the edge of her vision.
The pull of the ring was faint, but undeniable. A memory brushing her fingertips. The cold she had felt in the museum, the tug that had whispered recognition. Alina tried to shake it off. It was silly. A coincidence. Nothing more.
Breakfast was a blur. Elina sat quietly, flipping through her notebook, eyes sharp and distant. Alina tried to talk, but her sister barely looked up. There was tension in the air, subtle, almost imperceptible—except Alina noticed. And the realization made her chest tighten.
She wanted to fight it, to dismiss it. This is nothing. It's just coincidence.
But dreams had a way of creeping into daylight.
At university, Alina found herself distracted. She walked down the hallways, noticing things she never did before—the hum of lights, the way shadows pooled under stairwells, the subtle chill in corners. She tried to laugh it off with friends, but the laughter felt hollow, a mask too tight.
During a lecture, she felt it again: that tug, faint but insistent. Her hand twitched toward the ring she hadn't touched since the museum. The memory of Elina's quiet stare from breakfast returned, and Alina realized something terrifying: the dreams weren't isolated. They were connected, mirrored—both of them pulled into the same web.
She shook her head. No. I won't let it control us.
Yet that evening, when she lay in bed, the nightmare came back. The walls closing. The figure stumbling. The blurred face. This time, it whispered a name she didn't recognize—but it sounded like Elina.
Alina jolted awake, heart pounding. Across the hall, she imagined her sister sleeping, unaware of the pull, unaware of the pattern forming, unaware of how real it all was.
Her reflection in the mirror caught her eye. The shadows behind her seemed darker, sharper. A cold breeze drifted past, though the window was closed. And she understood: ignoring it would not make it go away.
The ring had marked them. The curse had begun.
And Alina, full of fiery defiance, refused to yield.
She would fight it. She would not surrender.