Fractals bloom behind Elle's closed eyelids—impossibly complex patterns that spiral and divide, each wave perfect and necessary. Mathematical equations drift through her consciousness like schools of luminous fish, their symbols rearranging into solutions she somehow understands without having studied them. The concepts feel as familiar as her own heartbeat yet utterly foreign to her waking mind.

Golden light bathes everything, not harsh or blinding but soft and nurturing. It pulses with intelligence, with purpose. She floats through it, weightless, timeless. Her body—if she still has one in this space—feels warm from the inside out, cells humming with energy that vibrates at precisely the right frequency.

Perfect resonance.

The thought comes unbidden, and she knows it's true. Whatever this is, she's attuned to it completely. The connection thrums through her being, a symphony of information transferring itself into her very tissues.

Unlike her previous dreams—fragmented visions and half-formed warnings—these newer experiences carry weight. Importance. They aren't merely showing her something; they're changing her. Microscopic adjustments ripple through her body with each pulse of golden light. Her mind expands to accommodate knowledge that shouldn't fit inside a human brain.

A tingling begins in her palms, spreads up her arms. Her veins illuminate briefly beneath her skin, tracing pathways of light that mirror the fractals surrounding her. She feels herself absorbing, integrating, becoming.

The equations drift closer, imprinting themselves not just in her memory but in her cells. This information wants to be carried, wants to transform. And Elle—vessel, catalyst, conduit—receives it all.

This matters, she thinks as the golden light intensifies. This is preparation.

For what, she doesn't yet know. But the certainty settles into her bones alongside the new information.

The light pulses once more, brilliant and all-encompassing, and then begins to fade to darkness.

Elle gasps awake, her body rigid on the thin mattress. Her skin feels too tight, muscles aching as if she's run for miles. A trickle of warmth slides from her nose, and her fingers come away with a smear of blood. The room spins momentarily as her consciousness fully returns to her physical form.

Elle sits up, wiping the blood from her nose with the back of her hand. The dreams have been intensifying for weeks now—what began as faint whispers has become a roaring symphony of information. Each night, the Lattice weaves itself more intricately through her consciousness, leaving her changed in ways she's only beginning to understand.

She moves to the window of her apartment, high above the city in this ancient megalithic tower. Dawn breaks over the horizon, painting the crumbling skyline in amber and gold. Sixty-seven floors below, tiny figures move through streets that wind between massive structures built by hands that understood physics in ways modern science can only guess at.

"They knew," she whispers, her breath fogging the glass. "They knew everything."