The fire was almost dead.
Only a few pieces of wood remained, glowing beneath a layer of ash.
Safsan sat across from the old woman.
He still did not know why he had stayed.
Perhaps it was the mountain.
Perhaps it was the silence.
Or perhaps there was something about the woman sitting in front of him that made him feel like he could speak without being judged.
She looked at him.
Not at his clothes.
Not at his face.
At him.
“You run fast in the darkness, my son.”
Safsan remained silent.
His eyes lowered.
The words sounded strange.
But somehow...
they felt familiar.
Safuu continued.
“No human being can outrun himself.”
Safsan looked up.
“You think that if you close your eyes, hide from what frightens you, and tell yourself that you will deal with it tomorrow, the days will simply disappear.”
She moved a piece of wood with a thin stick.
“But nothing disappears.”
The fire cracked.
“What you refuse to face remains inside you.”
Safsan listened.
“When courage is suppressed long enough, when change is delayed long enough, when the life you know you should live is constantly postponed...”
She paused.
“Something begins to grow in the dark.”
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Safsan remembered the dream.
The running.
The fear.
The footsteps behind him.
His own face.
His own clothes.
His own movements.
His own eyes.
Safuu looked directly into his eyes.
“The person chasing you was not your enemy.”
Safsan said nothing.
“It was you.”
A cold silence settled between them.
“Not the Safsan you see every morning in the mirror.”
She slowly shook her head.
“It was the Safsan you have imprisoned.”
Safsan's expression changed slightly.
“The courage you keep delaying.”
“The change you keep avoiding.”
“The person you could become...”
Her voice became quieter.
“...and who is tired of waiting for you.”
Safsan looked down at his hands.
“So why was it chasing me?”
“Because you kept running.”
She looked toward the mountain.
“And because it wanted you to stop.”
Safsan remembered the moment he had turned around.
He remembered seeing himself.
For a moment, he had believed he was going to die.
Safuu continued.
“You were so afraid of leaving what you already knew that you would rather die from fear than stop and face what was waiting behind you.”
Safsan breathed slowly.
“But when you finally understood that you were dreaming, your mind did something clever.”
She smiled faintly.
“It created another door.”
Safsan remembered waking up.
Only to discover that he was still dreaming.
Then waking again.
And again.
And again.
“A false awakening.”
Safuu's eyes remained fixed on him.
“Your mind built a labyrinth of mirrors.”
Safsan looked at her.
“Every time you thought you had escaped, you were still inside.”
She paused.
“Fear can disguise itself as safety.”
The fire became smaller.
“And sometimes the mind would rather create a thousand false doors than open the one door that leads outside.”
Safsan remained quiet.
He understood.
Not everything.
But enough.
Safuu leaned slightly closer.
“You were given the chance to listen to your own voice.”
“You didn't.”
Her expression became serious.
“So now...”
She looked toward the darkness beyond the fire.
“...the game is over.”
Safsan felt something tighten inside his chest.
“The next dream will not be merciful.”
He remembered the feeling he had before waking that morning.
The fear of sleeping.
The feeling that something was waiting.
Safuu spoke again.
“A black snake is waiting for you.”
Safsan's eyes narrowed.
“If you refuse to take the first step in the light...”
She looked directly at him.
“...the snake will force you to take it in the dark.”
Silence.
Safsan stared into the dying fire.
For the first time, he wondered if his dreams had been trying to tell him something he had refused to hear while awake.
Not because something was hunting him.
But because something inside him was tired of being ignored.
* * *
Safsan did not know who Safuu truly was.
To him, she was simply an old woman living far away from the modern life he knew.
Odania had changed.
The cities were modern.
People worked ordinary jobs.
Children went to school.
Technology had become part of everyday life.
People drank coffee, went to cinemas, built businesses, studied, travelled and lived their lives without thinking much about the rulers who had once governed the land.
Kings and queens belonged to another age.
Princes and princesses belonged to old stories.
Stories written in books.
Stories passed from one generation to another.
Stories that most people no longer cared about.
Safsan had never imagined that one of those stories could still be sitting in front of him.
He did not know the history of the woman beside the fire.
He did not know what name she had once carried.
He did not know why she had disappeared.
And Safuu did not tell him.
Not yet.
Safsan looked toward the mountain.
“Tulluu Diimtuu.”
The words left his mouth quietly.
Safuu smiled.
“The Red Mountain.”
Safsan looked at her.
“Why do you live here?”
She did not answer immediately.
Instead, she looked toward the horizon.
The last light of the day had disappeared.
Only darkness remained.
“Some places are not chosen because they are easy.”
She looked back at him.
“They are chosen because they are difficult.”
Safsan frowned slightly.
Safuu continued.
“To change deeply is like climbing this mountain during a storm.”
“You can turn back.”
“You can stay where you are.”
“You can convince yourself that the climb is unnecessary.”
She looked at the peak.
“But if you continue...”
Her eyes returned to Safsan.
“...you may finally see the world clearly.”
Safsan said nothing.
He looked at the mountain again.
For the first time, it seemed different.
Not smaller.
Not easier.
Just clearer.
He didn't know what waited for him after tonight.
He didn't know what the black snake meant.
He didn't know why this woman understood his dreams.
And he certainly didn't know that the old woman sitting beside him was connected to a forgotten chapter of Odanian history.
A chapter about a princess.
A throne.
And a disappearance that had happened long before Safsan was born.
For now...
she was simply Safuu.
And somehow, Safuu had been waiting for him.