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CHAPTER FIVE — ECHOES IN THE WAKING WORLD
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2025-12-13 00:12:14Nora’s Point of View
I woke with my heart pounding. Not from a nightmare. Not from fear yanking me upright. But from the strange heaviness that followed me out of sleep like a second shadow. The dream replayed behind my eyes. The room that wasn’t my room. The blue moonlight. The cloaked figure who shouldn’t exist. That impossible voice speaking my name. I tried to tell myself it was nothing. Stress. Exhaustion. Too much caffeine. The kind of dream people had when their life suddenly felt off-balance. But the Death card on my pillow said otherwise. I didn’t touch it at first. I pushed myself upright, rubbing both hands over my face, trying to smooth the trembling out of my breath. My fingers were cold. My whole body was cold. “Get a grip,” I whispered. My voice felt small in the quiet room. I reached for the card, bracing for it to feel warm or icy or somehow wrong. But it felt normal. Ordinary. As if it had not changed in my hands the night before. As if it had not shown my name. As if I had not heard a voice behind it. I turned it over. Still my name. Still wrong. Still undeniable. I set the card down and pulled my knees to my chest, hugging them. I stayed like that for a long moment, fighting the urge to unravel. I should have been terrified. Calling someone. Running. Doing anything but sitting there. But I wasn’t terrified. Not the way I should have been. The dream had been frightening. His presence had chilled me deeper than any winter wind. But something about it felt controlled. Not safe, exactly, but deliberate. Focused. Like a storm that chose not to sweep me away. I didn’t know why that mattered. I didn’t know why I cared. I closed my eyes and whispered, “It wasn’t just a dream.” The room stayed silent. I stood slowly and stretched out my stiff muscles. My reflection caught my eye from across the room, and I stepped closer. My face looked the same. But my eyes… I leaned in. I looked tired, yes, but also different. A little clearer. A little older. As if I knew something I wasn’t ready to admit out loud. My pulse jumped. “What is happening to me?” The mirror didn’t answer. I turned away abruptly, needing motion. I made coffee. I sat at the tiny kitchen table. I watched the steam rise and pretended this was just another morning. But the moment I lifted the mug to my lips, I froze. A voice flickered through my mind. “Dreams are doors, Nora.” The sound wasn’t in the room. It pressed through my thoughts, cold and certain. I set the mug down too hard. It clattered against the table, and I flinched. “No. You’re not doing this,” I muttered. “You are not hearing him.” But I was. Not clearly. Not like the dream. More like a memory refusing to fade. I rubbed both palms over my eyes. “I couldn’t just let him die,” I whispered. This time the words didn’t echo in my mind, but they still felt like a reply. Fear tugged at me. Curiosity pressed harder. I wanted to know what he was. Why he came to me. Why I could hear him. Why he cared that I changed something. I should have been terrified of wanting answers. I wasn’t. And that frightened me more than the dream ever had. I pushed back from the table, needing distance from my thoughts. I stepped toward the hallway, but the overhead lights flickered. Once. Twice. A slow dimming, as if something vast passed between me and the world. I froze. My breath fogged. A whisper brushed my ear, close enough to raise every hair on my arms. “Nora.” Not imagined. Not remembered. A voice in my mind again, but sharper this time. I spun around, heart slamming so hard it hurt. Nothing. Just the empty kitchen. Just the hum of the refrigerator. Just the Death card lying face-up on the table. Except… It wasn’t the same. A second word had begun to form beneath my name, the ink spreading across the surface as if alive. Coming. My pulse stopped, then kicked painfully. “No,” I whispered. “No, no, no.” Another word bled into shape, curling beneath the first. For you. The kitchen lights snapped off. Darkness rushed in. And somewhere behind that darkness, something ancient exhaled and stepped closer.
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Claimed by Death CHAPTER FOURTEEN — THE SECOND DEVIATION
Nora’s Point of View I wake to sunlight and the strange awareness that the night did not pass unnoticed. Not the feeling of being watched. The feeling of having been kept. Like a promise made without words. The room looks the same. The couch beneath me. The blanket twisted around my legs. Pale gold light slipping through the blinds. The city beyond the windows already awake. And yet the air feels alert. Like something stood guard until morning. I lie still for a moment, listening. Traffic hums. A door slams somewhere down the block. Someone laughs, sharp and brief. Normal sounds that don’t ease the tension in my chest. “He stayed,” I murmur, without knowing why I’m certain. The space near the far wall feels warmer than the rest of the room. Not occupied. Just recently vacated. I sit up slowly and rub my arms, grounding myself. Whatever watched over me last night is gone now, but the reason it stayed doesn’t feel gone at all. The quiet feels wrong. Not empty,
Claimed by Death CHAPTER THIRTEEN — THE UNNAMED CLAIM
His Point of View I remain after she sleeps. I should not. This is not my role. I do not linger once a thread has steadied. I do not watch when no ending is imminent. Vigilance without purpose serves no function I am meant to perform. And yet, here I am. Nora lies curled on the couch, breath slow and even, her pulse steady beneath the thin skin of her wrist. The room has returned to its proper shape. The air no longer bends. The streetlight outside keeps its rhythm. Everything appears corrected. It is not. Fate does not make mistakes. It recalibrates. And tonight, it recalibrated around her. I tell myself that is why I stay. Because Fate has moved. Because visibility has been breached. Because consequences will follow. These are sufficient reasons. They should be enough. Still, I note the deviation. I do not understand when observation began to resemble concern, or why, when I consider leaving, the idea feels incorrect. I stand at the edge of the
Claimed by Death CHAPTER TWELVE — THE MARGIN
Nora's Point of View I wake with the certainty that I am not alone. Not the way you wake from a nightmare. Not the hazy panic of a half-remembered dream. This is different. The room is exactly as I left it. The lamp on the end table. The blanket twisted around my legs. My laptop closed, dark and silent. Moonlight spills through the blinds in thin silver lines, striping the floor. Nothing is wrong. And yet my chest feels tight, like something important has already passed through me. I sit up slowly and listen. Even for this late hour, the silence feels wrong. No distant sirens. No passing cars. Not even the usual late-night voices drifting up from the street. I swing my legs over the edge of the couch. “That’s new,” I whisper. My tarot deck sits on the coffee table where I left it. The cards look ordinary. Harmless. Just paper and ink and old symbols. I reach for them anyway. The moment my fingers brush the top card, the room shifts. Not physically. Something deeper. P
Claimed by Death CHAPTER ELEVEN — THE FIRST THREAT
His Point of View Silence is never empty. Mortals believe it is, but between worlds, silence holds everything. Threads hum with unfinished stories. Endings wait. Reapers move like quiet shadows, completing their tasks. This is the silence I have always understood. Yet lately, when I close my eyes, I do not see the dying. I see a mortal curled on her floor, sobbing into her knees. Nora. I have guided countless souls. I have witnessed every shape of grief. But her grief lingered. It echoed. It pulled at something in me I should not possess. This is why I should stay away. I do not. Instead, I trace the faint pull of her thread until I find her again. She sits at her small desk, hair loosely tied back, laptop open, notebook waiting beside it. Her thumb rests on the trackpad as if she has been debating whether to write for some time. Then she exhales and begins. A romance manuscript. Her fingers move slowly across the keys. She writes of two souls drawn together by something
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Claimed by Death CHAPTER NINE — WHEN COMPASSION TOUCHES FATE
His Point of View She thanked me. The words left her lips in the cold morning air, soft enough that no mortal ear should have caught them. But I did. The whisper brushed against the tether between us, and something inside me tightened. Gratitude was not unfamiliar to me. Mortals thanked me when I ended their suffering. They begged when they feared their end. They prayed when they misunderstood what I was. They did not thank me for compassion. No one had ever thanked me for stepping beyond my role. Because I never did. I drifted through the in-between until I found her again. Nora walked toward the café with her bag at her side, unaware that each step tugged faintly on the thread tying her to me. It was not a chain. It was not a bond I had chosen. It existed only because something had been seen, and something had been acknowledged. I should have severed it. That was the rule. Threads were meant to be clean. Brief. Untouched by sentiment. I had severed countl
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