Not everything that is lost is truly gone.
Some things remain, even when they can no longer be touched. Some keep watch from a place humankind has never known. And some wait so long that people forget they ever made a promise.
That night, a woman woke from her sleep.
Her breath came in gasps. Sweat dampened her temples, and her fingers clutched the blanket hard. She had just had the same dream again, for who knew how many times.
In her dream, there was always someone standing in the distance.
The figure never came closer. Never threatened her. In fact, every time it appeared, it only smiled, as though waiting for someone to notice it was there.
The woman rubbed her face, trying to bring herself fully back to consciousness.
Just a dream, she thought.
But as she was about to lie back down, her gaze fell on her reflection in the mirror.
For a moment, she felt that something was standing right behind her.
She turned quickly.
Empty.
There was no one there.
The woman let out a breath, then switched off the lamp. She did not know that some things need no permission to enter a person's life. Nor must they show their form for their existence to be believed.
Somewhere else, far beyond the reach of humans, something had been waiting for a long time.
And the waiting was not over.
Years later, two women with entirely different lives would be brought together by a death.
One was accustomed to searching for the reasons behind human behavior.
The other was accustomed to finding answers in the evidence left upon the bodies of the dead.
Both believed that the truth always leaves a trace.
They simply did not yet know that not every trace comes from the world they knew.