Chapter 5 — The Name That Doesn't Exist

I stared at the word in my notebook.

Aurelia.

I read it once.

Then again.

Then I turned the page, as if I might find an explanation written somewhere else.

Nothing.

Just my notes from the dream.

Seraphina. Sixteen, maybe. Mira. Underground archive. Modern city. They are still watching.

I put my pen down.

  "All right," I whispered. "Let's think about this like a normal person."

I waited.

Nothing happened.

  "Excellent. Very productive."

I leaned back against my pillow.

The word Aurelia looked familiar, but not in the way a name from a dream should. It felt like something I had almost remembered, something sitting at the edge of my thoughts.

I tried to picture where I'd heard it.

A lecture?

A book?

A documentary I'd watched while doing something else?

I couldn't find anything.

I checked the time on my phone.

4:19 a.m.

I had less than three hours before my alarm.

I closed the notebook.

Whatever Aurelia was, it could wait.

I turned off the lamp and lay down again, determined not to spend the rest of the night investigating a word I'd apparently learned while unconscious.

Sleep didn't come immediately.

My mind kept returning to the underground room.

To the books.

To the drawing of the city.

And to that sentence.

‘They are still watching’

Whoever had written it had known something about a world that shouldn't have existed in Seraphina's time.

Or perhaps it was simply an old drawing of a city I'd mistaken for something modern.

That was possible.

I held on to that explanation until I finally fell asleep.

By eight o'clock, I was regretting every decision I'd made the previous night.

My alarm had gone off twice before I managed to get out of bed. I nearly put my shirt on inside out, forgot where I'd left my university ID, and spent several minutes looking for my phone while holding it in my hand.

Daniel watched me from the kitchen. "Rough night?"

I stopped searching the counter. "Why does everyone keep asking me that?"

  "Because you look like you've been arguing with your pillow." Daniel said 

  "I won."

  "Congratulations." Daniel said sarcastically 

He returned to his breakfast.

I poured myself some water and drank it quickly.

Daniel glanced at the notebook sticking out of my bag. "What's that?"

I looked down. "My notebook."

  "I can see that." Daniel said 

  "Then why ask?"

  "Just making conversation." Daniel said,he's voice flat.

  "Try asking me something easier. Like the meaning of life."

  "Have you finished your assignment?" Daniel asked

I froze.

Daniel smiled. "Exactly."

I grabbed my bag. "You're enjoying this too much."

  "Have a good day." Daniel said 

I was already halfway to the door when I heard him add, 

  "And try sleeping tonight!"

I didn't turn around. "I'll put it on my schedule!"

The door closed behind me.

For a moment, I stood in the hallway, breathing in the cool morning air.

Then I took out my phone and opened the search engine.

I typed the word again.

*Aurelia ancient kingdom.*

I stared at the results.

There were references to names, places, fictional kingdoms, and unrelated historical material. Nothing immediately connected to Seraphina or the palace.

I tried another search.

*Princess Seraphina Aurel Aurelia.*

Nothing useful.

I changed the spelling.

*Seraphina Aurel, princess.*

Still nothing.

I locked my phone.

  "Fine."

The word could wait until after class.

This time, I meant it.

My first lecture was about as exciting as watching paint dry.

I tried to concentrate.

I really did.

I wrote down the lecturer's explanation, underlined an important point, and even answered a question when he asked the class.

For approximately fifteen minutes, I was a perfectly normal student.

Then i stopped writing.

I had written the word Aurelia in the corner of my notes.

I stared at it.

When had I done that?

I quickly crossed it out.

The student beside me glanced at the page. "Did you get that last point?"

  "What?"

  "The lecturer's explanation." The student said

  "Yes."

The student pointed at my notebook. "You've been staring at the same page for ages."

  "I process information deeply."

  "You haven't written anything for ten minutes." The student said

  "I process it very deeply."

The student gave me a look.

I turned back toward the lecturer.

I was not going to spend another day thinking about a dream.

That was my decision.

It was a reasonable decision.

A sensible decision.

A decision I intended to follow.

Unfortunately, the lecturer then mentioned a historical archive that had been lost during a conflict centuries earlier.

My attention returned immediately.

  "Some historical gaps," he explained, "are caused by natural decay, disasters, or the destruction of records. Others are more difficult to explain. Sometimes, the surviving evidence suggests that entire collections of documents were removed deliberately."

My pen hovered above the page.

Deliberately.

I thought of the underground archive.

The old books.

The strange drawings.

I forced myself to keep writing.

The lecturer continued, moving on to another topic, but I had stopped listening.

What if the drawings weren't random?

What if the archive in Seraphina's dream contained real information?

I shook my head.

No.

I was doing it again.

A dream wasn't evidence.

A vivid dream wasn't evidence.

A name I couldn't explain wasn't evidence.

I wrote those three sentences in the margin.

Then, because apparently my brain had developed a sense of humour, I added:

Neither is being sleep-deprived and suspicious of furniture.

I stared at the sentence.

At least I was still capable of making myself laugh.

Quietly, anyway.

At lunchtime, I finally gave in.

I sat at a table with my food and opened my notebook.

My friend dropped into the chair opposite me.

  "You're doing it again." She said 

I looked up."Doing what?"

  "Looking like you're trying to solve a murder." She said grinning 

  "I'm eating."

  "You've been holding the same fork for a full minute." She said clearly not buying it

I looked at my hand.

She was right.

I took a bite immediately.

  "Happy?"

  "Deeply." She said 

She opened her drink. "Are you going to tell me what's going on?"

I hesitated.

For a moment, I considered telling her everything.

The palace.

The girl.

The dreams.

But how could I explain it without sounding as though I'd lost my mind?

I didn't even understand it myself.

  "I've been having strange dreams," I admitted.

Her expression softened. "What kind of strange?"

  "Recurring strange."

  "Same dream every night?" She as

  "Not exactly." I looked down at my notebook. "It's the same person, but different situations. Different ages, too."

She paused. "That's actually interesting."

  "Is it?"

  "Sure. Dreams can repeat people or places. Maybe your brain is building a story." She said excitedly 

I looked at her.

That was almost exactly what I'd been telling myself.

  "That's what I thought."

  "So what's the problem?" She asked 

  "Nothing."

She gave me a long look.

I sighed.

  "Okay. The problem is that I remember the details too clearly."

  "Like what?" She asked 

I hesitated. "The name of the girl. The place she lives. Things she says."

She leaned forward. "Wait. You know where she lives?"

  "Not exactly. It's a palace."

She blinked. "A palace?"

  "Yes."

  "Are you secretly watching historical dramas before bed?" She asked suspiciously 

  "No."

  "Reading fantasy novels?" She asked 

  "Sometimes."

  "There you go." She said 

I frowned. "That doesn't explain everything."

"It doesn't have to explain everything. Dreams mix things together. You might remember a name from a book and combine it with something from a film."

I wanted to disagree.

But I couldn't.

It was a perfectly reasonable explanation.

Perhaps that was why I found it so frustrating. I wanted an answer that made the strange parts fit together, but every ordinary explanation left something behind.

My friend picked up her fork. "What's the girl's name?"

I looked at her.

Then at my notebook.

  "Seraphina."

She repeated it thoughtfully. "That's a pretty name."

I waited for her to recognize it.

For her to say she'd heard of a princess called Seraphina Aurel, or a lost kingdom named Aurelia.

She didn't.

She simply took another bite.

  "Does she do anything interesting in the dream?" She asked 

I thought about the locked door.

The drawings.

The sentence on the final page.

  "She seems to spend a lot of time getting into trouble."

My friend laughed. "Then perhaps your brain is trying to tell you something about your own life."

  "What does that mean?"

  "You do have a talent for finding things to worry about." She said laughing 

I pointed my fork at her. "That is completely unrelated."

  "Of course." She said 

  "And I don't go around opening mysterious doors."

  "Not in real life, anyway." She said 

I laughed despite myself.

For a few minutes, the conversation moved on to university gossip, an upcoming assignment, and whether our lecturer had actually given us enough time to complete it.

It was a relief.

I didn't need someone to solve the mystery for me.

I needed someone to remind me that the rest of my life hadn't disappeared just because I was having strange dreams.

Still, when lunch ended, I slipped the notebook back into my bag.

I wasn't finished investigating.

Not yet.

After my last lecture, I went to the university library.

I told myself I was there to work on my assignment.

That was partly true.

I opened the document, read the instructions, and completed the first paragraph.

Then I opened a new browser tab.

I searched for Aurelia again.

This time, I tried a different approach.

Instead of searching for a princess, I looked for ancient kingdoms with names that sounded similar.

I found plenty of possibilities.

Some were real places. Others were fictional settings or variations of names used in different languages.

But none matched the kingdom in my dreams.

I searched for Seraphina Aurel.

Nothing convincing.

I searched for royal families.

Nothing.

I searched for old palaces with sealed western wings, underground archives, and clock towers.

That search was less useful than I'd hoped.

I leaned back in my chair.

  "Well, this is going wonderfully."

A student at the next table glanced at me.

I lowered my voice.

  "Sorry."

I returned to the screen.

There was one more thing I could try.

I searched for the sentence from the underground archive.

*They are still watching.*

The results were useless.

The phrase appeared in discussions, stories, and unrelated pages. Without more context, it could mean almost anything.

I closed the tab.

Maybe I was approaching this from the wrong direction.

I didn't have the name of an author, a date, a location, or a single piece of evidence that the palace had existed outside my dreams.

All I had was a collection of memories from two nights of sleep.

I looked at my notebook.

Two nights.

Two dreams.

One girl.

And a name that had appeared in my thoughts without explanation.

I turned to a clean page and wrote a heading.

THINGS I KNOW

Underneath, I listed the facts.

* The girl is called Seraphina.

* She lives in a palace.

* The palace has a western wing with a locked door.

* She has appeared at different ages.

* She has a friend named Mira.

* She has access to an underground archive.

* The archive contains drawings of a city that looks modern.

* At least one document says, They are still watching.

I paused.

Then I wrote another heading.

THINGS I DON'T KNOW

* Who Seraphina is.

* Where Aurelia is.

* Who created the drawings.

* Who is watching.

* Why I'm dreaming about her.

I stared at the two lists.

The second one was considerably much harder.

  "Fantastic."

I shut the notebook.

There was no point continuing today. I had an assignment to finish, and I wasn't going to let a mysterious princess ruin my grades.

I returned to my work.

For the next hour, I managed to concentrate.

Mostly.

By the time I got home, the sky was turning orange.

Daniel was in the living room, sorting through a pile of papers.

He glanced up. "You're late."

  "Library."

  "Studying?" He asked 

  "Yes."

He looked at me.

I looked at him.

He looked at me again.

  "What?"

  "Nothing." He said 

  "Why are you looking at me like that?"

  "Because you said you were studying, and you have the expression of someone who has spent six hours arguing with a computer." He answered 

I dropped my bag. "Three hours."

  "That makes it better?" He asked smiling slightly 

  "Significantly."

He laughed and returned to his papers.

I went to the kitchen for water.

For a while, I stood by the counter, thinking about whether I should try another search that evening.

I could ask Daniel if he'd ever heard of Aurelia.

But that would invite questions.

Why did I want to know?

Where had I heard the name?

And if he asked whether something was wrong, I would have to lie again.

I didn't want to do that.

Not because I thought he would judge me.

Daniel was the last person who would laugh at me for being frightened or confused.

But I didn't have an explanation to give him.

I wasn't even sure there was anything to explain.

So I decided to wait.

If the dreams continued, perhaps I'd eventually understand them.

And if they stopped, I'd be grateful.

That evening, Daniel made dinner while I finished my assignment at the table.

He asked me to chop some vegetables.

I did.

He told me I was cutting them too slowly.

I told him that if he wanted them cut faster, he could do it himself.

He took the knife from me.

I watched him for several seconds.

  "You're cutting them the same way."

  "Go and finish your assignment." He said avoiding the question 

  "You're avoiding the issue."

  "Elena." He said 

I smiled and returned to my work.

For the first time that day, I stopped thinking about Seraphina.

At least until I went to bed.

I changed into my nightclothes and set my notebook on the bedside table.

I considered writing down everything from the dreams again, but I already had the details recorded.

Instead, I opened to the page with the two lists.

Things I know.

Things I don't know.

I read them one last time.

Then I closed the notebook.

  "That's enough investigating for today."

I switched off the light and settled beneath the blanket.

I wasn't frightened of sleeping.

Not exactly.

I was simply curious about what would happen next.

Would I see Seraphina again?

Would she be ten, sixteen, or eighteen?

Would I find out what was behind the locked door?

Or would I dream about something entirely unrelated, proving that I'd spent the last two days making far too much of an ordinary dream?

I turned onto my side.

  "Whatever happens," I whispered, "please let me sleep until my alarm."

My eyes closed.

The room grew quiet.

And slowly, I drifted off.