The forest had always been quiet, but tonight, it breathed differently.

Elara stood by the window of her cabin, brush in hand, staring out into the dense pines that hugged the edge of her property. Her canvas sat behind her, unfinished — a dark smear of trees and stars that had lost her attention hours ago.

She saw him again.

A silver-gray wolf, half-shadow, half-moonlight, watching her from the treeline. He didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Just stood there, still as stone, like he had every night for the past week.

Elara’s breath caught.

She should’ve been afraid. Most people would be. But something in those eyes — golden, unnervingly intelligent — always froze the fear before it reached her heart.

She raised her hand slowly, palm open against the glass.

The wolf tilted its head.

“Elara.” Her friend’s voice crackled through the old walkie-talkie beside her. “You there?”

Startled, she grabbed the device. “Yeah. I’m here.”

“You see him again?”

Elara hesitated. “He’s back.”

A pause. “Girl, I’m telling you — that’s not normal. You need to report it.”

“I’m not reporting him,” she said firmly. “He’s… just watching. He’s never come close.”

“You’re alone out there.”

“I’m fine.”

She wasn’t sure that was true. Lately, dreams had been bleeding into her waking hours — voices whispering under moonlight, a name she didn’t remember calling out in her sleep. Her paintings had shifted, too — now filled with silver fur, glowing eyes, and an ache she couldn’t explain.

And always, that wolf.

After the walkie clicked off, Elara lingered by the window. The wolf hadn’t moved. For a moment, they simply stared at one another. Then, soundlessly, he turned and vanished into the trees.

That night, Elara couldn’t sleep.

The fire had died out, and the cabin had grown cold. She curled beneath her blankets, wide-eyed, listening to the wind whisper through the pine needles outside. The shadows on her ceiling seemed to sway like branches.

She sat up.

The window beckoned again, the way it always did when the feeling returned — a pull she didn’t understand.

He was gone.

Reluctantly, she stepped onto the porch. Snow crunched faintly beneath her bare feet. The clearing beyond glowed under the heavy, low-hanging moon. Her breath clouded in front of her.

And then — a sound.

Branches cracking. Something moving just beyond sight.

“Hello?” she called softly. Her voice barely rose above the wind.

Nothing. But she felt him.

Not just heard — felt. Like a heartbeat outside her own chest.

She waited, pulse quickening.

And then… from the trees, a low, almost imperceptible sound reached her. Not a growl — not quite. It was deeper. Sadder. Like a sigh from something that didn’t remember how to speak.

The sound curled into her bones.

She stepped back inside and locked the door.

Later, in bed, she opened her sketchbook. Her hand moved without direction, and when she looked down, a wolf’s face stared back up at her — wild and soft, powerful and tired. Beneath his golden eyes, she had written, without meaning to:

“He remembers me.”

He watched her from the shadows.

Each night, he told himself he would not return. And each night, he did.

The snow no longer bit at his paws. The cold no longer mattered. Only she did.

The girl in the cabin — the one who walked like she belonged to the mountains, who smelled of pine and turpentine and rain. The one with moonlight in her eyes.

Elara.

He did not know how he remembered her name, only that it echoed in his mind like a half-remembered song. Some nights it came like thunder. Others, like a whisper. But it always came.

The curse that bound him had stolen much. His voice. His past. His shape. And yet it had left this one thread intact — a memory, fragile and fraying, of her.

He hadn’t seen her in years. Maybe longer. Time blurred when your days were counted in seasons, not calendars. But when he stumbled back into this part of the forest — half-mad with hunger and wind — her scent had stopped him cold.

He had watched her from the edge of the trees for seven nights now. Always at the same hour. Always from the same spot. Her light would flicker on, her silhouette would move behind the frosted glass, and sometimes — if the wind was still — he could hear her humming.

Tonight, she stood outside.

Barefoot. Pale. Beautiful.

She was looking for him.

The snow clung to her long dark hair, to the sleeves of the oversized sweater she wore like armor. In her hand, she held a sketchbook, fingers tight on its spine. She stepped forward, hesitant but unafraid.

“Hello?” she called softly. Her voice curled through the trees like breath.

His throat ached.

She didn’t know what he was — not truly. To her, he was just a wolf. A haunting presence. A question without an answer. And still, she came outside.

Still, she waited.

He took a step closer. Snow crunched beneath him, and her eyes locked on his position. She couldn’t see him — not yet — but her gaze pierced through the dark like she was trying to.

His pulse quickened, even though he no longer had the heart of a man.

She turned slowly and walked back inside. The door shut behind her with a soft click, and the porch light flickered out.

The forest returned to silence.

He stood there for a long time after, unmoving, surrounded by the cold and the ghosts of who he used to be.

If she remembered him… even just a little… maybe there was hope.

Maybe not all of him was lost.

But the moon was growing fuller with each night, and he felt it — the pull of the change. The deeper he fell into the wolf, the harder it would be to crawl back.

Still, he would return tomorrow.

As long as she stood in that cabin with her sketchbook and that look in her eyes, he would find his way back.

He always had.

Elara dreamt of the forest.

But it wasn’t the one that surrounded her cabin — not the familiar pines she painted or the snowy paths she walked. This forest pulsed with something older, something alive. The trees were enormous, their bark smooth like stone, and a violet mist drifted through the air like breath. The stars above weren’t just stars — they shimmered and shifted, as if they were watching her.

She stood barefoot on soft moss, her white dress clinging to her knees with dew. Her hands were stained — not with charcoal or paint, but with something darker. Blood? Ink? She didn’t know. All she knew was that she wasn’t alone.

He stood in front of her.

Not the wolf — at least, not the way she’d seen him in the real world. He was a man here, tall and cloaked in shadow. His face was blurred, indistinct, as though her mind couldn’t quite remember it. But his eyes — golden, glowing — were the same. Unmistakable.

He stepped toward her, and the forest fell utterly silent.

“Elara,” he whispered.

His voice sent a tremor through her bones. She tried to speak, to ask him who he was, what this place was, why her chest ached at the sight of him. But no sound came. Her throat burned with the effort.

He reached out — not with a hand, but with something deeper. A tether between them. The second his fingers brushed hers, she felt a snap, like a door swinging wide open.

Memories she didn’t recognize rushed through her. A silver blade. A ruined temple. Fire licking the edge of a sacred circle. The scent of wildflowers and ash. And always — always — that voice calling her name like a prayer.

And one word, spoken in the dream with the weight of eternity:

“Kael.”

She woke with a gasp.

The fire had died again. Shadows pressed in around the cabin, and the cold bit at her skin. Snow tapped gently on the window, a steady rhythm like a heartbeat. She pressed a hand to her chest, trying to slow her breathing.

“Kael,” she said aloud.

The name hung in the air, fragile and strange. It didn’t belong to her — and yet it fit like something long forgotten. She didn’t know who he was. But she knew the name meant something.

It meant him.

She slipped from her bed and walked barefoot to the window. The clearing was empty tonight. No glowing eyes at the treeline. No silver shadow moving through the pines.

But she still felt him. Not out there — in here. In her.

She opened her sketchbook and flipped to the page where she had drawn the wolf. His eyes stared back at her, as if daring her to remember. Beneath the line she had scribbled in a half-trance the night before — “He remembers me” — her hand moved again, slow and certain.

She wrote: Kael.

The name settled like an anchor in her chest.

She didn’t believe in fate. Or curses. Or souls meeting across lifetimes. But maybe she needed to.

Because whatever haunted these woods, whatever called to her in dreams — it wasn’t just a wolf.

It was someone who once loved her.

And maybe still did.