Chapter 4

The room was still dark, lit only by the neighbor’s house bleeding through the blinds—same as always. Eli stretched an arm toward the desk beside his bed. He got a hold of the notebook laying there without even bothering to look. He stood, opened it to the second page.

Dates lined the paper, each followed by a time. All of them fell between 4:15 and 4:45 A.M., although there were only a few records in the list. He scanned downward until he reached the first empty line and wrote, “January 21 — 4:27 A.M”.

He closed the notebook and exhaled. No drifting back into insomnia. No signs yet, anyway.

It had also been five days since the peculiar encounter in the park—the last time he and Yuan had gone. Neither of them wanted to return. Eli wasn’t afraid, and he didn’t feel threatened, but something insistent inside him told him to stay away. That was until today.

He walked through one of the park’s entrance paths, braced for something he couldn’t tell. It was as if something hiding could suddenly catch him off guard. But nothing happened.

The park looked the same as ever. Nothing was out of the ordinary. Laughter drifted through the air. Leaves and grass rustled. Footsteps passed, scraping the bricked and cemented paths. Somewhere farther in, voices blurred into a low murmur. People moved through the space without urgency, enjoying the afternoon peace with the scenery.

Eli came alone. Yuan had told him he had errands to attend to again. It was vague, as usual, offering no details.

When Eli sat on their usual bench, his eyes drifted immediately to the spot where the couple had been. It was empty. Not just vacant but unclaimed. The background was alive—children ran in the distance, cyclists passed, strangers crossed the path—yet the space where the couple used to sit remained untouched, like a gap the park itself had forgotten to fill.

Eli leaned back and looked away.

I guess not everyone repeats themselves, he thought, reflecting on what Yuan had told him.

The wind had picked up. Eli felt it brush against his face as he stood, cool and steady, lifting his hair and pressing it back from his forehead.

He decided to walk—anything to break the stillness of just sitting and watching. As he moved along the walkways, he deliberately avoided the pond, the image of the little girl squatting beside it and the lone lily standing still lingering in his mind. But after several aimless loops around the park, he found himself drifting closer and closer.

The spot was empty. There was no little girl. There was no movement. No sign that anyone had been there at all.

The air felt hollow, the kind of quiet that didn’t soothe. Everything was calm—too calm. The place was lonely and desolate.

In the middle of the pond, the water lily remained where it had been before. Its pale buds were closed, unmoving and still. Even the wind could do nothing to disturb it. Flowers weren’t supposed to be rigid, yet this one looked as though it had learned stillness from stone.

Small ripples moved across the pond’s surface. The water wasn’t clear, but translucent enough to reveal other lilies beneath. Eli couldn’t tell if they were dead or just merely waiting or resting.

Do water lilies even do that?

He knelt and leaned closer, reaching toward the surface. As the distance closed, the feeling of light-headedness crept in. Something urged him to pull back, while something else quiet drew him forward as if the silence was calling him.

There was no sound. Neither in the park, nor in his thoughts.

The silence thickened as his finger hovered inches above the water.

“Hello!”

The voice cut through him.

Eli jumped back and looked up. A young girl shorter than him stood beside him, no older than six. She wore a bright spaghetti-strap dress and shoes decorated with a small dog sticker on each toe.

It was her!

His eyes widened, though his body stayed still. A chill ran up his spine, followed by an unexpected wave of relief. She looked ordinary. Real, human, present, different from whatever explanations his mind had been circling for days.

For a moment, he felt foolish for the judgments he had let take shape. She was just a child—a curious and quiet child. Maybe she really had been watching the flower that day, absorbed in it the way children sometimes were, unbothered by time and the surroundings.

The thought left a dull ache in his chest. He felt sorry—not just for misreading her, but for how easily his mind had reached for something wrong.

“Uh—hello?” Eli said, steadying his voice. “Can I help you?”

Act normal, he told himself.

The girl raised her arm. Within her grasp was a water lily. She offered it to him with a small, gentle smile. The flower was open. Pale, like the others in the pond, but somehow brighter and cleaner.

Eli hesitated. “What’s that for?”

“Take it,” she said.

“Why?”

“Just take it,” she insisted, then added, softer, “Please?”

“…Okay.” He reached out and accepted it, giving into her persistence.

Up close, the lily was no different from the ones in the water. Although much smaller, the shape and color were all the same. It was just another flower. Still, the gesture felt misplaced for Eli, like something nice delivered to the wrong person.

“I dreamed last night that I should give a flower to a lonely person,” the girl said. There was no hesitation in her voice, as if the thought had never needed questioning. “Then I saw you.”

“You dreamed about me?” Eli asked.

She shook her head. “I only knew he was lonely.”

“I’m not lonely.”

“Yes, you are.”

The certainty in her answer caught him off guard. He opened his mouth to argue, then stopped as she turned her head, looking left and right. Instinctively, Eli followed her gaze.

There was no one around them. The nearest person was probably at least a hundred meters away.

The realization settled slowly. He didn’t know what unsettled him more—that she had noticed, or that a part of him couldn’t deny it. 

At least, not all the time. He had Yuan, his best friend— constant, familiar presence. Proof that he wasn’t as isolated as what the girl had just suggested. Perhaps, just not today. Not in this quiet spot, with no one standing close enough to contradict her claim.

The distinction felt thin.

“Still, thank you for this. I—I appreciate it. Nobody has given me…” he stopped when he faced back and the girl was no longer where she had been. 

Once again, the atmosphere fell silent. 

“Hello?”

Eli stood and looked around, somewhat expecting her to step out from behind the bushes or reappear near the pond. But there was nothing—no nearby footsteps retreating, no signs of movement in the corners of his vision. The park carried on as it had always been—distant laughter, rustling wind, cyclists passing far down the path, and vehicles from the neighboring street.

Eli exhaled and rubbed the back of his neck. Strangely, he didn’t feel alarmed. He felt no hints of fear or unease. He wasn’t rushing for explanations either. It was just quite a dull surprise, followed by something close to acceptance. Children wandered off all the time. That was normal. Maybe he had looked away longer than he thought—long enough for the little girl to run away and leave no sign.

He glanced down at his hand. The lily was still there. That reassured him more for a bit. He turned it slowly between his fingers. The petals were cool and dry, intact, and real. Whatever else had just happened, at least, the flower remained.

“I guess… thank you,” he murmured, feeling faintly ridiculous saying it to empty air.

After a moment, he left the park and made his way home. 

That night, Eli sat on the edge of his bed. The room was dim; lights were out, except for the faint glow from the streetlights outside. His notebook lay open on his desk. He slipped the lily carefully between two pages, choosing a spot at random, then closed it gently, as if the flower might get bruised.

He wondered why he felt the need to keep it, yet he couldn’t find an answer.

As he prepared for bed, his thoughts drifted back to the girl’s words—not the flower, not the pond, but the dream. The idea of someone dreaming of him at all felt strange. He couldn’t remember the last time he had appeared in anyone’s thoughts without being there to witness it.

He laid back and stared at the ceiling.

Somewhere, an innocent child had slept, dreamed, and woken up believing she had been meant to find him. The idea sat poorly in Eli’s thoughts. It wasn’t gratitude that took over in his mind but doubt. He couldn’t understand why anyone—especially someone who he had never met before—would care for him at all. Maybe innocence only noticed things without knowing why—unaware it might never end well.

The thought refused to go away. Although unwelcomed, it lingered. It was insistent, even long after he decided it wasn’t worth considering.

Eventually, exhaustion took over. His eyes slowly closed. It wasn’t because of ease. It was out of surrender.

The clock read 1:00 AM. 

However, for the first time in days, Eli fell asleep without checking the time.