Todos os capítulos de STRANGER ATTRACTION : Capítulo 31 - Capítulo 40

Kaelith and I had stayed up most of the night, comforting Horris as he thrashed against his own fears. Last night had been worse than usual; he had nearly bolted from the compound, and it took both of us and several neighbors to hold him down. Every time his eyes darted wildly, my heart leapt into my throat. Kaelith never left my side, her hand tight around mine, silently promising we would get through this together.By 6:45 in the morning, just as the sky began to pale with early light, figures appeared at the edge of the compound. Elders, Kaelith’s father, and mine moved slowly, faces grim and long. I exchanged a glance with Kaelith. When had they left? Where could they have gone in the middle of the night?Kaelith pinched my hand behind Horris and gestured subtly, signaling that the elders had likely gone in search of a solution for him. My chest tightened, and I let out a quiet sigh of relief—but it didn’t last. The elders’ expressions remained serious, unreadable. My heart sank

We made arrangements quickly. After the walk, we would take a bath in the lake. That was the plan. We laughed, talked, and teased each other as we grabbed our things. Then we raced toward the woods. Horris kept going ahead of us, turning back every now and then with that playful grin on his face.He tried to outrun us.“Slow down!” Kaelith and I screamed, but he did not listen. He only ran faster, his laughter echoing through the trees.Then it happened.It was so fast that it felt unreal. In the blink of an eye, Horris ran forward and disappeared. He had gone straight off a cliff. None of us knew there was a cliff there. It looked like the usual path, only covered with leaves. There was no sign, no warning, nothing.Kaelith and I froze.Everything we were carrying slipped from our shoulders and fell to the ground. Our hearts left our bodies. We rushed forward, hoping it was a small fall, hoping it was nothing serious.But when we reached the edge, we saw it.A very high cliff.Below

“Then, Kayla, just two days after Korra died… I had an uninvited guest.”Her fingers tightened slightly around mine. I could tell she was fully listening.“It was at dawn,” I continued. “I was lying on Korra’s bed, wide awake, staring at the same spot she stared at before she took her last breath. I couldn’t sleep. I kept replaying every memory I had of her. The woman who raised me. My mother… or the woman I thought was my mother.”I swallowed.“Then everything she said before dying rushed back into my head. I sat up immediately, wondering if anything she said had meaning at all, or if it was just part of whatever strange thing was happening to her.”I paused, then added quietly, “But things didn’t start then. They started years earlier, when I turned fourteen.”Kayla’s gaze sharpened.“I started noticing unusual things happening around me,” I said. “I could hear voices from miles away and knew exactly who was speaking. My sense of smell became… sharp. Too sharp. And, Kayla… my injuri

“While I thrashed in the water pretending to drown, I saw you and Kaelith on the cliff. The way you both cried tore something open inside me. It felt like my chest was being ripped apart. At that moment, I did not know what to do anymore. Part of me wanted to abandon everything and climb out just to hold you. Another part knew what was waiting for me beneath the water.As I hesitated, I saw the fisherman running toward the shore, ready to jump in after me. At the same time, the queen’s guards finally arrived beneath the surface. If the fisherman had dived in then, he would have died for nothing. I could not let that happen, so I went with the guards.We sank deeper and deeper until the world around us shifted. In the blink of an eye, Ashwood disappeared. We were somewhere else entirely. The water glowed with pale blue light. Great towers of clear crystal rose from the ocean floor, and arches of pearl curved overhead like the ribs of some ancient creature. Strange lights drifted throug

My voice shook as I looked at him. “Horris… is it really you?” The words almost refused to come out, like my mouth was trying to catch up with my heart.He didn’t disappear.He didn’t fade like an illusion.He was there.I lifted my hand slowly and touched his face. His skin was warm. I brushed my fingers over his cheek, then pushed my hand into his hair, feeling the strands slip through my fingers. Some of it fell over his shoulders and I choked on a small cry.“It’s you,” I whispered. “It’s actually you.”He nodded, smiling through the tears already running down his face. That broke me completely. I wrapped my arms around him, holding on like he would vanish if I let go. He lifted me off the ground with ease, clutching me to his chest. I sobbed into him, shaking.“Is it really you?” I kept saying it, like I was begging reality to answer.Kayla couldn’t hold it anymore. She burst into tears and rushed to us, hugging us from behind. His arms tightened around both of us and we clung to