She had seen him before she ever knew the world could be so cruel.
In the velvet hush of sleep, where time forgets itself and shadows speak, Ariadne dreamed. Not of places or things—but of a man. Always the same man, with a pair of mismatched eyes, a voice she never quite remembered, and a presence that lingered like perfume on her pillow long after she woke.
She didn't know his name. Never heard it. But he was there—steadfast, haunting, tender. Woven into the fabric of her mind like a melody she'd never learned but somehow knew by heart.
It began as a flicker. A face in a crowd. A laugh on the edge of silence. Dreams, at first. Sure. But then the world around her began to shift. Patterns formed where there shouldn't be any. Familiarity bloomed in places she'd never been. And always—always—that feeling: that he was real.
She stopped telling people after a while. Stopped trying to explain the kind of certainty that doesn't live in logic. People thought she was chasing ghosts.
Maybe she was.
But there was no shaking it. No forgetting.
Because something deep in her—something ancient and aching—knew the truth:
He was out there.
And one day, she'd find him.
Or fate would bring him to her.