Three days after discovering the shadow figure in my apartment, I still couldn't sleep for more than two hours at a stretch. Every creak of the building, every shift in the shadows sent me bolt upright, heart hammering against my ribs. The dark circles under my eyes had deepened to the point where coworkers were starting to comment.

  I stood in the museum's research library, staring at the screen of a microfiche reader without really seeing it. I'd spent every spare moment combing through the museum's archives, looking for anything resembling the symbols from my dreams, the tablet, the pendant. The official collections yielded nothing beyond vague similarities to known ancient alphabets—not enough to explain why these particular patterns made electronics malfunction around me or why they appeared on my skin while I slept.

  "Fuck this," I muttered, pushing away from the reader. The museum's resources weren't cutting it, and I couldn't risk asking Dr. Chen after her strange behavior and connection to Mr. Gray.

  I needed to go somewhere with more extensive holdings on ancient symbology. Somewhere beyond the museum's specialized collections. Somewhere like the university library.

  Forty minutes later, I stood in the cavernous main hall of Rainier University's library, inhaling the familiar scent of old books and floor polish. The building was a brutalist concrete monstrosity from the outside, but its interior had been renovated into a sleek, modern research facility with six floors of stacks and special collections.

  "Excuse me," I said, approaching the information desk. "I'm looking for materials on ancient Mediterranean symbology, particularly pre-historic geometrical patterns."

  The student worker glanced up from her phone with the blank expression of someone who'd rather be anywhere else. "Special Collections, fifth floor. You'll need to speak with the rare manuscripts librarian."

  I thanked her and made my way to the elevators, my reflection in the polished doors looking haggard and unfamiliar. The silver streak in my hair seemed more pronounced than usual, standing out starkly against the dark brown. I touched it unconsciously, remembering how it had appeared after that first vivid dream years ago—the night I'd drawn the first symbol in what would become my journal collection.

  The elevator doors opened on the fifth floor, revealing a hushed space of polished wood tables and glass-enclosed shelves. A placard on the wall directed visitors to check in at the Rare Manuscripts desk before proceeding further.

  I approached the desk, behind which sat an elderly woman with her silver-white hair pulled back in a neat bun. As she looked up, I noticed with a jolt that a distinctive streak of silver—identical to mine—ran through the white, as if a single lock had remained unchanged while the rest had aged.

  Something flickered across her face—recognition, perhaps, though I was certain we'd never met.

  "Can I help you?" she asked, her voice soft but clear.

  "I'm researching ancient geometric symbols," I said, trying to keep my voice steady despite my sudden unease. "Particularly patterns that might predate known writing systems in the Mediterranean region."

  "I see." Her eyes—gray and penetrating—studied me with an intensity that made me shift uncomfortably. "Do you have specific texts you're looking for, or are you beginning a general survey?"

  "General for now. I've encountered some unusual patterns that don't match standard reference works."

  She nodded thoughtfully. "We have several collections that might interest you. Your name, please? For the access log."

  "Marcus Reeves."

  "I'm Luna Keller," she said, rising from her chair. "I'll show you to the appropriate section."

  She led me through the stacks to a quieter corner of the floor, where a series of locked cabinets held what appeared to be older, more fragile texts. As she walked, I noticed a slight limp, yet she moved with purpose and confidence.

  "These cabinets contain our pre-classical Mediterranean collection," Luna explained, removing a ring of keys from her pocket. "Much of it focuses on established writing systems like Linear A and B, but we also have several volumes dealing with proto-writing and symbolic systems that never fully developed into languages."

  She unlocked a cabinet and carefully extracted a large leather-bound volume. "This survey of Aegean symbols might be a good starting point. It covers findings from several archaeological sites dating from 12,000 to 7,000 BCE."

  As she handed me the heavy book, our fingers brushed momentarily. A jolt shot through my hand, up my arm, and seemingly through my entire body—like static electricity but far more intense. Luna gasped softly, her eyes widening.

  Simultaneously, the reading lamps at the nearby table surged, their bulbs flaring painfully bright for an instant before settling back to normal. My watch stopped, its digital display frozen at 2:17.

  Luna stared at me, her composed facade cracking to reveal something like wonder—or fear.

  "You're waking up earlier than expected," she whispered, her voice barely audible.

  My breath caught. This wasn't coincidence or accident. This was direct acknowledgment of what had been happening to me—the electronic disturbances, the symbols, all of it.

  "What do you mean?" I managed to ask, heart pounding. "What's happening to me?"

  Before she could answer, the sounds of approaching footsteps made her straighten, the professional librarian mask slipping seamlessly back into place.

  "The index in the back is quite thorough," she said in her normal tone as a student rounded the corner. "You'll find the chronological listings particularly useful."

  The student asked Luna a question about course reserves, and she excused herself to assist him, leaving me clutching the heavy book and reeling from what had just happened. The momentary crack in her composure told me everything I needed to know—she recognized what was happening to me because she knew what it was. The silver streak in her hair, identical to mine. The reaction when our hands touched. Her whispered comment about "waking up."

  I wasn't crazy. Something real was happening, and Luna Keller knew what it was.

  I carried the book to a reading table, my hands trembling slightly as I opened it. The pages were filled with reproductions of ancient artifacts alongside scholarly analysis of their markings. I flipped through methodically, scanning for anything resembling my dream symbols.

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  About a third of the way through, my breath caught. There—in a plate showing stone findings from an underwater site near Cyprus—were patterns nearly identical to those from my dreams. The caption described them as "non-linguistic geometric motifs of unknown significance" dating to approximately 11,000 BCE.

  I photographed the page with my phone, then continued searching. The more I looked, the more connections I found—symbols from my dreams appearing in artifacts scattered across the Mediterranean region, all dating to roughly the same period, all dismissed as decorative or religious motifs rather than true writing.

  When Luna returned, I'd accumulated a stack of books and journals, with dozens of photos on my phone documenting the connections.

  "Finding what you need?" she asked, her tone casual but her eyes sharp with interest.

  "Yes," I said carefully. "Though I have more questions now than when I started."

  She glanced around, ensuring we were alone. "What exactly are you looking for, Mr. Reeves? These aren't common research interests for someone your age."

  I hesitated, then decided to take a risk. "I've been dreaming about these symbols. For years. Recently, they've started appearing in... other contexts."

  Luna's expression remained neutral, but her hands tightened slightly on the back of the chair she stood behind. "Dreams can be powerful things," she said. "Sometimes they remember what we forget."

  The echo of the dream-woman's words—your blood is the key to remembering—sent a chill down my spine.

  "There's more," I said, lowering my voice. "When I touch certain artifacts with these symbols to take photos of them, strange things happen. Electronics malfunction. And the symbols... they seem to respond to me."

  Luna glanced toward the security camera in the corner of the room, then back to me. "Have you shown anyone these photos you're taking?"

  "Not yet. I'm still trying to understand what—"

  "Good. Keep it that way." Her voice had hardened slightly. "Some things need to be understood before they're shared."

  She reached for a thin volume bound in faded green leather, so old it appeared to predate modern binding techniques. "This might interest you. It's not in the catalog."

  The book she placed before me had no title on its cover, just a geometric pattern stamped in gold that matched one of my recurring dream symbols exactly. My hand trembled as I opened it.

  Inside were hand-drawn illustrations of the symbols—dozens of them, arranged in complex configurations with annotations in a script I didn't recognize. Some pages contained diagrams of what appeared to be energy flows or force fields, with the symbols placed at key junctures.

  "What is this?" I whispered, transfixed by the precision of the drawings, the familiarity of the patterns.

  "A record," Luna said simply. "One of many. This one was recovered from a private collection in Istanbul in the 1940s. Its origins are... disputed."

  I turned to a page showing a particularly complex arrangement that I'd dreamed about repeatedly—a central spiral surrounded by radiating triangular patterns. When I photographed it, something strange happened. On my phone screen, additional lines appeared between and around the symbols, glowing faintly blue—lines that were invisible on the physical page before me.

  "Look at this," I said, showing Luna the screen. "There's more here than what's printed."

  Luna's eyes widened, then narrowed. With surprising speed for someone her age, she plucked the phone from my hand and accessed the photo gallery. Her fingers moved with practiced efficiency as she deleted not just the most recent image but all the photos I'd taken.

  "Not yet," she said, her voice low and urgent. "They're watching the networks. Digital images, especially those with... enhancements... are flagged automatically."

  "They?" I echoed, confused and alarmed. "Who's watching?"

  "The same people who've been following you," she said, returning my phone. "You've noticed them, haven't you? The man in the gray suit?"

  My blood ran cold. "How do you know about him?"

  Luna's expression softened slightly. "Because I've been watching too. Just for different reasons."

  Before I could process this revelation, she glanced at her watch. "It's nearly closing time. You should go. Come back tomorrow—earlier, when there are fewer people. We'll talk properly then."

  I wanted to protest, to demand answers now, but something in her expression stopped me. There was urgency there, but also caution. Whatever she knew, she wasn't willing to share it where they might be overheard or observed.

  I gathered my things, tucking the green leather book into my messenger bag when Luna nodded permission. As I headed for the elevator, my mind raced with questions. Luna Keller knew about the symbols, about Mr. Gray, about what was happening to me. She had the same silver streak in her hair. She'd recognized something when our hands touched—something that made electronics surge just like they did around me.

  You're waking up earlier than expected.

  The elevator doors opened, and I stepped inside, still lost in thought. What did she mean by "waking up"? Waking up to what? And who were "they"?

  The main floor was nearly empty as I exited the library, the late afternoon sun casting long shadows across the plaza outside. I paused at the top of the wide steps, taking a deep breath of fresh air after hours in the climate-controlled environment of Special Collections.

  That's when I saw them.

  Mr. Gray stood near a campus shuttle stop, engaged in what appeared to be a heated discussion with a woman I'd never seen before. She was tall and striking, with dark hair pulled back in a severe style that emphasized her sharp cheekbones and intense eyes. Around her neck hung a pendant bearing one of the symbols from my dreams—a triangular configuration with curved lines extending from each point.

  I froze, instinctively stepping back into the shadow of a column. Neither had noticed me yet, their attention focused on their conversation. Their body language suggested disagreement, with Mr. Gray gesturing emphatically while the woman shook her head.

  I couldn't hear what they were saying from this distance, but I could see their faces clearly enough to recognize the woman's growing frustration. She jabbed a finger into Mr. Gray's chest, her expression fierce.

  That's when her gaze shifted, scanning the area—and locked directly onto me.

  Her eyes widened slightly, and she said something urgent to Mr. Gray. He turned, following her gaze, his expression changing from annoyed to intensely focused when he spotted me.

  In perfect unison, both reached inside their jackets with identical smooth motions.

  I didn't wait to see what they were reaching for.

  Adrenaline surged through me as I bolted down the steps and into the crowded plaza. Behind me, I heard the woman call out something that was lost in the ambient noise, but her tone was commanding, not pleading.

  I weaved through groups of students, ducking behind a tour group, then cutting through the science building's ground floor. My heart pounded against my ribs as I emerged on the other side of the quad, glancing back to see Mr. Gray and the woman splitting up, approaching from different directions.

  Their coordination was unnervingly perfect, as if they'd rehearsed this exact scenario or could somehow communicate without speaking. Mr. Gray moved with the efficient economy I'd come to recognize, while the woman's movements had a fluid grace that somehow seemed more dangerous.

  I sprinted toward the campus center, where the afternoon rush of students changing classes would provide better cover. As I rounded the corner of the humanities building, I caught a fragment of conversation between my pursuers.

  "...showing signs already," the woman's voice carried clearly for just a moment. "We need to accelerate."

  Then I was in the thick of the crowd, pushing through bodies, ignoring irritated comments as I maintained my pace. I ducked into the campus center, took the stairs two at a time to the second floor, crossed to the opposite stairwell, and descended again.

  I emerged near the eastern entrance, where the campus met the city streets. A bus was just pulling away from the stop. I ran, waving frantically, and the driver—in a rare moment of public transportation mercy—actually stopped and opened the doors.

  I leaped aboard, feeding my transit pass into the reader with shaking hands, then collapsed into a seat near the back. Through the window, I caught a final glimpse of the woman as she emerged from the campus center, her eyes scanning the street, the pendant at her throat catching the sunlight.

  For a moment, it seemed to glow with the same blue luminescence I'd seen on my fingertips after touching the tablet, on the phone screen when photographing the book.

  Then the bus turned a corner, and she was gone.

  I slumped in my seat, heart still racing, Luna's green leather book heavy in my bag. The woman's words echoed in my mind, mingling with Luna's whispered observation.

  "You're waking up earlier than expected."

  "He's showing signs already. We need to accelerate."

  Whatever was happening to me, it was happening faster than someone—or multiple someones—had anticipated. And they were watching, waiting, planning around it.

  I closed my eyes, trying to calm my racing thoughts. Luna knew something. She'd recognized what was happening to me immediately. Tomorrow, I'd go back earlier, as she'd suggested. I'd get answers.

  But as the bus carried me away from campus, away from Mr. Gray and the woman with the pendant, I couldn't shake the feeling that tomorrow might be too late.