10

Lior The moon hung heavy and bright over the quiet village, its silver glow spilling through Lior’s bedroom window. He lay awake, heart restless and his mind swirling with questions he couldn’t yet voice. He had no memories of his real mother, only stories told in whispers. Miriam, his foster mother, never spoke much about the night she found him. She said it was a cold autumn evening when she came upon the small bundle, swaddled and silent, lying beside a woman who would never wake. “She died giving you life,” Miriam told him once, her voice thick with something like sorrow, but guarded. “I don’t know much more than that.” No letters. No last words. No trace of the father who vanished before Lior’s first breath. He had grown up surrounded by love, yes, but also by questions. Why had no one come looking for him? Why was he so different, his eyes seemed to catch the moonlight in a way others’ did not? Why did his dreams feel like memories of a life he never lived? Tonight, the moon seemed to whisper to him, its glow pulsing softly as if it recognized him. Lior sat by the window, fingertips tracing the frost on the glass, feeling a strange warmth beneath his skin. He had never spoken of the dreams: the shadowy forest, the distant cries, the golden eyes watching him from the dark. Miriam’s footsteps creaked behind him. “You should rest, Lior. The night is no friend to a restless soul.” He smiled faintly but said nothing. Because he didn’t know what restless meant not really. Not yet. But deep inside, something was stirring. Something ancient. Something waiting. And one day, he would have to find out what it meant.