Sometimes the ache in your chest isn't your own—it belongs to someone still reaching for you.
Tall, dark-trunked trees appeared in my vision, their branches tangled in a sky that shimmered with starlight. The ground shifted softly under my feet, breathing, almost. It had the familiar smell of maple, creating a sweet, earthy aroma. I found the pleasantness inviting, and I knew this place, now for a second time.
There was no path during this visit, though. I found myself in the middle of the woods, with no idea where to go.
I was lost.
I heard coyotes nearby. My heartbeat quickened, and I scanned the tree line. I had hoped they wouldn't be real enough to get me in this place, or that I'd wake up soon.
I knew I must have dozed off again. There was no logical explanation otherwise.
I heard faint buzzing but could hardly see a thing. I wasn't sure whether to move or stay put.
I froze, like a deer in the headlights.
A shape moved in the distance. I tensed up, but not so much that a muscle shifted. When I finally thought it had been nothing, someone had come crashing through me hard.
I slammed to the ground. The air thickened as all mine escaped my body in a single blow. I couldn't speak or move.
I wanted to scream, to get back up, but I couldn't.
Someone had been holding me down.
The soil smelled as if it had rained very recently, reminding me of something I learned in science class.
Where rain released a compound produced by a microbe, bringing the term "smell of fresh rain" into existence. The leaves were damp beneath me, and I should have been cold, but the heat from the person above me brought warmth to my backside.
The silence pressed in, and then a whisper brushed my ear,
"Don't move or make a sound, they are watching. They can see much better when the moon isn't out."
"Who is?" I asked the voice that had seemed familiar, but I couldn't place it.
"The Atropa drones move in the woods trying to catch our people. They can see better on the rare nights the moon isn't out. "
I was an Atropian myself, but this person acted as if they were the enemy. Watching, hunting us like prey.
But I wasn't afraid.
If anything, I felt steady. Held in place by something just beyond recognition. Like a heartbeat I used to listen to once, but had long forgotten.
Once the drone was clear, I rolled over. This young man was still on top of me.
Then the ache came.
Low in my chest. Sharp, but quiet.
The kind of ache that shocked the whole system.
"Levi?" I gasped.
"How do you know my name?" He responded as if he had amnesia. But this version of him had been younger, before I met him, I suppose. So why was I dreaming of him?
We locked eyes, him still on top of me. His blue eyes I hadn't been this close to. Seeing him so intimately. His gaze held mine, steady and searching, and for a moment, the weight in my chest wasn't fear anymore; it was recognition.
I'd never been this close to Levi, not in waking life, and yet there he was, looking at me like he'd known me long before Atropa ever existed.
He was beautiful, and something in me recoiled—like I'd stepped over a line I hadn't named.
Had I begun longing for another man?
"You aren't from around here, are you?" still gazing at me with a half smile.
"No, I don't think I am. Are you?" Levi couldn't be from here. He works for Atropa. Yet he acted as if he'd never been to the museum or that he'd ever worked for them. And had I brought it up, I doubt this version would have been open to the idea that he was important to their side. A director of history, a history that no longer has a moon.
Something had been getting crossed in my dreams. Then a twig snapped, and he jumped up suddenly.
Fear and disappointment moved through me like a ripple, carrying a single word I didn't hear—but somehow understood.
Home.
Why do I keep feeling like I need to go home, to this forest? And just before I could finish that line of questioning, I noticed Thayer standing where the twig snapped.
My breath hitched. Even after all this time, just the outline of him could unmake me. He didn't move, didn't speak—but the look in his eyes was enough. That quiet ache that said I had hurt something sacred. And yet… the forest hadn't cast him out. It had placed him here, beside Levi. What was I supposed to understand from that?
Had he been out here with Levi this whole time?
The forest began to blur. I tried to reach for him, but the image dissolved back into the sterile lines of my office. Once again.
The monitor across the room blinked back to life. A soft tone signaled a new archive alert.
But my hands were trembling.
It wasn't the first time the lines between dream and memory had blurred, but this one felt different, too vivid, too specific. And the ache in my chest hadn't faded with waking. It clung to me, heavier than before, as if some part of me hadn't fully left that forest behind.
I wondered if the Emberlink in my head was affecting me in ways I hadn't thought of.
Perhaps a malfunction occurred after the merge didn't work. I wondered if I had made the right decision by not telling anyone. Perhaps I should visit the guy who tried to help me that night and ask whether it can be removed.
But that would mean reliving what I'd done. That I hadn't just merged for love, but out of fear of losing it. That part of me was terrified of who I'd be if the Emberlink came out… and what I might get to feel if it stayed in.
I wasn't sure if I was ready to give up the gift of these vivid dreams I've been given.
I leaned forward, elbows on the desk, and rubbed the back of my neck. I'd been tired more often lately, but this seemed deeper. It was like carrying a weight no one else could see. One I chose. One thing I didn't talk about, and now I regret it.
There was no one to ask, no one to tell. It was already too late.
A knock at the glass partition startled me. I turned, and my heart rate was still uneven.
Levi stepped inside, his gaze sweeping the room before settling on me with those unchanged blue eyes I had seen up close moments ago.
My body felt an overwhelming urge, as if I needed to feel him again. Had this been the start of getting over Thayer? It had been about a year now. Maybe I'm ready to love again. But with my boss? Maybe I shouldn't go there, and I doubt he'd even feel the same way. I would just end up making a fool of myself again. And in my dream, I tried to reach for Thayer. Was that my heart choosing him? I was so confused.
"Sorry," he said, holding up a data slate. "Archive system's back to normal. I figured you'd want the logs now."
"Thanks," I said, soft and in need of clearing my throat. He didn't seem to notice.
He lingered near the threshold, eyes narrowing just slightly.
"You okay?"
I hesitated. Then nodded. "Just… tired." I guess he did notice after all.
He handed me the slate, then glanced toward the sealed Emberlink prototype case on the wall. "You ever wonder what kind of memories those things hold that we'll never be allowed to access?"
"All the time," I replied, managing a half-smile.
I tapped the slate's edge, not yet reading the entries.
"Levi?" I asked, after a beat.
He looked at me again, this time with that quieter curiosity of his. "Yeah?"
"Are there any real forests left? Not the simulations—actual ones. Old ones."
He blinked once, then leaned a little against the edge of the display case.
"There are a few," he said slowly. "Protected zones. Heritage sites. Most of them are restricted or unlisted. Why?"
"I saw one," I said before I could stop myself. "Not here. Just… in my head."
His gaze didn't shift. "A dream?"
"Maybe. It felt real. Like I'd been there before."
Levi's expression softened, but there was caution in it, like he was sorting through what I wasn't saying. I wonder if he knew more than he was telling me.
"Was anyone else there?" he asked.
The question made my throat go dry.
I looked away. "I don't know," I said.
But I did.
I just wasn't ready to tell him he had been in my dream, along with my ex-lover, whom I caught only a glimpse of.
Had it been some sort of message that my subconscious was trying to convey to me? Was it okay to let go and move forward?
Levi didn't push, and I'm glad he didn't. He only nodded, like he understood the shape of what I wasn't saying.
"Sometimes dreams give us answers before we know how to ask the right questions," he said softly.
I looked up, surprised by the kindness in his voice and how similar our thoughts had been.
"Thanks," I said, my tone barely above a breath.
I wondered how they could have a moon when it had been destroyed during the world's collapse.
I wanted to ask him if he had seen one like the version of him in my dream, which seemed to believe was only away for the night, as if it was more unusual to be gone for one night than to exist at all. Afraid of looking stupid, given my extensive knowledge as a history buff, I decided to say nothing at all. I had already wasted his time asking about forests.
And I already know the moon no longer exists, but that Atropa's artificial sky not only provides controlled weather for our crops and ecosystem, it also provides the gravitational pull to create realistic tides for our small section of the ocean.
Maybe Atropa's fear was not chaos, but wonder. A sky no one could control. A pull no one could calculate.
I had begun to question whether I was on the right side of all this.
Sometimes I tried to imagine a night sky with a moon. Something ancient and whole, pulling at the oceans without permission. But the idea felt foreign, almost forbidden. Atropa had given us weather, tides, and safety. But they had also taken the wildness of the world and replaced it with something predictable… and empty. But if they hadn't, we'd be just like the rest of the world.
Everything outside the artificial sky was a wasteland that only brought me pain when thinking about how alone we all are.
Past Epoch Island, southeast of Solence, the map just fell away. I used to call Solence 'the last city'—a habit from growing up in the Northwest, where everything felt like an ending.
The last city I ever reached, and how the history buff in me dreamed of visiting Epoch Island one day.
But Atropa saved us. I just had to keep reminding myself of that.
He gave me a small smile, then stepped back. It was as if he had witnessed my thoughts wandering firsthand, waiting to see if I would say anything.
"Let me know if you ever need anything." He said, no longer waiting.
It felt like a promise he'd never break, and I believed it.
"I will. Thank you again, Levi, for listening. Maybe we can do it again sometime." I responded in the hopes that he'd take me on that offer. I'm not sure why, but talking to him comes so easily.
"Of course, I'd always listen to that voice, but I got to get going, we've got to be somewhere soon." He said vaguely, and I swore he was flirting with me.
If only I had a way of knowing for sure.
Now I can see how Cali feels when she wants to talk to me about a guy. I needed her opinion on what was happening here.
In a moment, he was gone, leaving me alone with the stillness of my office.
Levi's footsteps faded into the hum of the corridor.
I stared at my bag, thinking about the journal inside, then up at the ceiling, where the artificial lights mimicked a sky I was losing faith in.
A sky that never had a moon. My dream...
Before I could finish where I was going with my thoughts,
My Threadband went off... I looked down quickly, and it was purple again, blinking frantically. It's time for my review. Time to see what they know and don't know. Had this been what Levi meant when he said we had somewhere to be soon?
I hadn't even realized he said it until after looking back on it.
A chill crawled up my spine. Whatever this review was, it wasn't routine—I could feel it. And if Levi's warning had been more than just small talk, then maybe I wasn't the only one who'd started asking dangerous questions.