The fragile peace of exhaustion didn't last. Elena’s eyes slowly snapped open, her vision cutting through the dim morning shadows of the unfamiliar bedroom. Her breathing was immediately shallow, uneven, and ragged, as if she had just surfaced from a suffocating underwater current.
For a few paralyzed seconds, she simply stared blankly at the intricate molding of the high ceiling, waiting for her racing pulse to slow down. The vivid, chaotic dream lingering stubbornly inside the deepest recesses of her mind refused to dissolve into daylight.
The relentless summer rain. The echoing, unbothered laughter of children. Three protective boys. And a single, small girl running through the grass.
Elena sat up abruptly in the massive bed, the silk sheets rustling around her waist. Her hand instin
