They told me to rest—that surgery went “as planned.” But no one mentioned the silence after the doctors left.

Then Lena, my two-year-old sister, came in. She climbed beside me, kissed my forehead, and whispered, “It’s okay now. He said you’re not going with him.”

She meant the man in the dark coat—the one I thought I imagined before surgery.

After I got home, I began sketching him. Lena recognized him immediately: “He said I was brave.”

Weeks later, she disappeared from daycare. We searched everywhere. That night, I dreamt of the man again—this time holding Lena.

“She asked to take your place,” he said. Then he laid her beside me.

I woke up. Moments later, we got the call. She’d been found, safe.

She later whispered, “I had to help. Because I love you.”

I don’t know who the man was. But I know love saved me.

Believe in what you can’t explain.