AISLYNThe pull doesn’t announce itself.

It doesn’t arrive like panic or hunger or the sharp clarity of danger. There is no warning bell, no spike of instinct demanding immediate response. Instead, it settles into me quietly, like fog creeping along the ground.

I wake with it already present.

Not a thought. Not a dream. Just a sense of elsewhere, threaded through my chest, tugging gently in a direction my mind refuses to name.

I frown at the ceiling of my room, annoyed more than alarmed. ...