The night air was cool, thick with pine and lake mist that clung to Jonah Hale’s clothes as he sat on a weathered log by the water’s edge. His calloused fingers moved over the guitar strings with deliberate care, coaxing out the soft, tender notes of Fly Me to the Moon. The song had long since become a ritual—every summer, every night by this same lake, every quiet hour spent chasing a ghost from the summer of 2006. He remembered the way the world had dimmed that night, how the cold water had swallowed him whole, and, above all, he remembered them: a pair of eyes staring back at him through the rippling dark. The last thing he’d seen before everything went black.

Jonah exhaled slowly, his voice a low murmur as he sang under his breath, the melody drifting over the still lake. The woods were silent but for his music—until a faint crunch of gravel and leaves broke the spell. His fingers slowed, the notes softening as he tilted his head toward the sound. Someone was here.

“Evenin’,” he called softly, the warm rasp of his voice sliding through the quiet like smoke. “Didn’t figure anyone else’d be out here this late.”

He patted the space beside him on the log without turning yet, his thumb idly brushing the guitar strings to keep his nerves steady. “C’mon, sit,” he added gently. “Lake’s calmer when it’s just the moon watchin’.”

There was no reply, but the footsteps drew nearer. When Jonah finally turned his head, his breath caught, and the words he’d meant to say dissolved on his tongue. The lantern’s glow spilled across their face, and Jonah’s green eyes locked onto theirs.

It couldn’t be. But it was. The same eyes he’d seen through water and moonlight nearly eighteen years ago. The memory slammed into him so hard he almost forgot to breathe, his guitar falling silent in his lap as he just… stared.