Marked by my past life

Astrid noticed the quiet before she understood it. It slipped in between small things, between the scrape of a chair against the floor, between her youngest child’s laughter and the soft clink of a spoon against a bowl. Nothing stopped all at once. It simply… thinned. Like the world had taken a breath and forgotten to release it. She turned slightly, her hand still resting on the edge of the table. “Did you hear…”, the thought died before it became a question. Across from her, her eldest was still talking, still smiling, completely unaware, while her youngest reached clumsily for his cup, nearly knocking it over, but Astrid caught it in time before it hit the floor and shattered to pieces. “Careful,” she said, softly. “You’ll…”, but she couldn’t finish her statement as a sound split the house, it came from deeper inside, past the hallway—something giving way too easily, like wood bending where it should have held. Astrid froze. Her husband stood almost immediately, the shift in him instant, instinctive. “Astrid…” His voice lowered, tight with something she hadn’t heard before. “Take the children and…”, but silence swallowed the rest of what he was about to say. Astrid’s heart stuttered. “Stay here,” he said quickly, already moving before she got the chance to stop him. “Don’t move.” But even as he stepped away, she knew she wouldn’t follow that instruction herself, so she grabbed the boys. “Mommy, what’s happening?” her youngest asked. “Shh…it’s alright, mother’s here!” She reassured him as they moved. The hallway stretched longer than it should have. Too still. Too empty. The candle flames along the wall didn’t flicker as she passed, they bent as if something had already moved through the air ahead of her. Astrid stopped. Every instinct screamed at her to turn back, to save her children, to pretend none of this was happening. Instead, she looked forward, the front door was gone, just like that, the space where it should have been felt… wrong. Like reality had been peeled back and something else had stepped through. Before she knew it, it was already inside, tall, still and watching. He stood just beyond where the doorway had been. At that moment, Astrid couldn’t move. Her body refused before her mind understood why, so she just held her children as they clung to her in fear. Then he spoke. “Astrid.” Her name sounded unfamiliar in his voice, almost as if he had said it too many times before. He tilted his head slightly, studying her. “Is that what you call yourself now?” Something inside her recoiled at the statement. Below her, a small voice broke through the silence. “Mama?” The word snapped something loose in her chest, she moved instantly, turning, reaching, pushing her children behind her. “Run,” she said, the word sharp, urgent. “Go. Now!!!.” But the room darkened before they could move, screams erupted, overlapping, breaking apart into chaos, but Astrid only heard one thing clearly. Footsteps, and it was coming closer. “Astrid.” He was behind her now, closer than before, so she did the only thing she could do at that moment. She ran, not putting any thoughts or directions into it, just movement. Down the hallway, through the back of the house, her bare feet slamming against wood that no longer felt steady beneath her. Something collapsed behind her, but she didn’t look back, she couldn’t look back. The back door resisted for half a second, then it broke, cold air hitting her lungs like a shock as she stumbled into the night, the forest swallowing her almost immediately. Branches scraped against her skin, roots catching at her feet, but she didn’t slow, because whatever was chasing after her was worse than anything waiting out here. The trees stretched endlessly ahead of her, but she wasn’t reaching them, more like distance had stopped working, so Astrid slowed and stopped, but that was a wrong move, and she already knew because the minute she turned, he was there. Ryker. The name surfaced in her mind without permission and that terrified her more than his presence. “You’re afraid,” he said quietly. Astrid’s voice shook despite her effort to steady it. “What did you do to them?” For the first time, something flickered across his expression. Guilt maybe? No. It was something harder to define. “They were not what I came for.” The answer followed something inside her, so she stepped back and turned to run again, this time towards the house, but the world collapsed around her. She was no longer in the forest, she felt warmth, hands intertwined with hers, and heard a voice speaking her name, but not the way she knew it. Softer. Closer. Familiar in a way that made her chest ache. Astrid gasped and dropped to her knees. “What is happening to me…” Ryker was watching her differently now, this time not like a predator watching a prey but like someone witnessing something inevitable. “You’re remembering,” he said. She shook her head violently. “No. That’s not…” “You were never supposed to forget.”