Jonathan's consciousness slowly began to reassemble amid a chaos that defied all definition.
He could not distinguish his body from the unfamiliar space around him, nor could he remember how long he had been submerged in that warm, silent darkness, resembling the amniotic fluid that envelops a child before birth.
Yet somewhere within that dimness, a sense of peace began to spread through his mind, enveloping him in a tenderness he had long since forgotten.
Then, a cry announced the birth of a new life.
Jonathan opened his eyes and discovered that someone was holding him in their arms. Before him stood a woman with an ordinary face, her cheeks wet with tears as she gazed at him with a smile full of love.
Beside her, a man was trying to hold back his tears, though the emotion he felt at becoming a father for the first time made it impossible for him to conceal his joy. Both looked at him as though his arrival in the world were the most important event of their lives, as though nothing else existed beyond that small room.
Jonathan did not understand why the scene stirred such a strange feeling within him.
There was something painful about the way his mother held him, the tenderness with which his father stroked his head, and the sense of security those hands conveyed. It was as though some part of him recognized that he had lost something similar a long time ago, even though he could not remember what it was or when it had happened.
Nevertheless, that sadness slowly disappeared beneath the warmth of the arms holding him. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, Jonathan did not have to worry about the future, defend himself against an enemy, or shoulder the responsibility of saving anyone.
He only needed to breathe and surrender to that feeling of security, which, without his knowledge, was beginning to erase the last remnants of his true identity.
His life unfolded like a carefully prepared movie, in which every event occurred at precisely the right moment and every memory found its place within an apparently perfect story.
At the age of five, he learned to play the piano under his parents' proud gazes. Whenever he made a mistake, his mother would stroke his hair and ask him to try again, while his father pretended to recognize the music of a great composer in those clumsy notes.
At sixteen, he walked alongside Eve beneath the rain, sharing an umbrella with her while the young woman tried to hide the blush that spread across her cheeks whenever their shoulders brushed against each other.
At eighteen, Jonathan experienced his first kiss, awkward and innocent, and discovered that happiness could be hidden in such a small moment that it barely seemed important.
Six years later, he knelt before Eve on an autumn afternoon and promised to remain by her side for the rest of his life. He did not swear that he would always be able to make her happy or that he would never make mistakes, because even then, he understood that no one could guarantee such things. He simply told her that he wanted to keep trying, and that answer was enough to make Eve burst into tears as she accepted the ring.
At twenty-six, Jonathan held his newborn daughter for the first time. The little girl was so tiny that he feared he might hurt her simply by holding her against his chest. For several minutes, he remained motionless, staring at her face while the nurse patiently waited for him to react.
He had never felt such a profound sense of responsibility. In the past, he had fought creatures capable of destroying entire lives, but none of those battles had prepared him to understand that someone now existed whose safety depended on him. For the first time, Jonathan did not wish to become stronger to defeat an enemy, but to remain by his family's side for as many years as possible.
And the years passed.
His life was not entirely free of difficulties. At forty, Jonathan had his first argument with Eve because of the long hours at work that kept him away from home.
That night, as he sat in the darkness after their argument, he realized he had made a mistake, but his pride prevented him from apologizing immediately.
However, the following morning, he found a cup of coffee beside his breakfast and a small note written by his wife, asking him to talk with her when he returned home.
Jonathan tucked the paper into his pocket and returned that afternoon with flowers, ready to admit his mistakes. Eve apologized as well, and they both learned that loving someone did not mean avoiding every argument, but finding the will to reconcile afterward.
Those memories accumulated in his mind with unsettling naturalness, forming an existence that seemed entirely his own.
Jonathan grew old alongside the woman he loved, watched his daughter grow up, and learned to accept the small losses that accompanied the passage of time. When his parents died, he wept in front of a black-and-white photograph he kept on a shelf, unable to grow accustomed to the absence of the two people who had been by his side from the very beginning.
Nevertheless, even that pain eventually found its place in his life, because Eve was still waiting for him at home, and his daughter still called him whenever she needed to talk.
Finally, at the age of seventy-five, Jonathan found himself lying in a hospital bed, his body weakened and the smell of disinfectant permeating the sheets. The afternoon light streamed through the window, partially illuminating Eve's face as she sat beside him, holding his hand.
His wife's hair had turned white, and the wrinkles around her eyes revealed all the years they had shared, but Jonathan could still recognize in her gaze the young woman who had once walked beside him in the rain.
"We still have so many things to do," Eve murmured, trying to smile despite her tears. "You promised me we would see the ocean again."
Jonathan wanted to answer that he would keep that promise, just as he had kept so many others throughout his life, but his body no longer obeyed his wishes.
He barely managed to squeeze his wife's fingers, feeling a helplessness unlike anything he had ever experienced in his former battles. Throughout his life, he had believed that as long as he possessed enough determination, he would always find a way to protect the people he loved. Now, however, he could not even get up to embrace the woman who had shared so many years with him.
"I'm sorry," Jonathan finally whispered.
Eve shook her head and leaned over him, clinging to his hand as though she could still prevent him from leaving.
"You don't have to apologize. Please, don't."
Jonathan gazed at her face for several seconds, trying to memorize every detail before his eyelids closed.
He was not afraid of death, but deeply saddened by the thought of leaving her alone, abandoning the life he had spent so many years building, and losing all the little moments he still wanted to share with her.
He wanted to walk beside her again, listen to her complain about insignificant things, and argue over matters they would have forgotten by the following day. He wanted another chance to do all the things he had taken for granted.
But time granted him no such opportunity.
His breathing grew weaker as Eve continued calling his name, and Jonathan closed his eyes with the feeling that he was leaving behind something irreplaceable.
Then he was born again.
The cry of a newborn echoed through a warm room, and two arms welcomed him with the same love as before.
His mother wept with happiness while his father gazed at the child with a trembling smile, unaware that this scene had already occurred countless times. Jonathan opened his eyes and found himself looking at his mother's face once again, experiencing such profound peace that the sadness of his previous existence vanished before he could understand it.
At first, he did not question this second chance.
Why would he? He could see his parents again, fall in love with Eve, and hold his daughter in his arms. He could even correct some of his mistakes and enjoy those moments he had lost too soon in his previous life. The chance to begin again seemed like a gift, an opportunity no man in his right mind would have rejected.
However, life ended once more, and then began again.
Jonathan was born, grew up, fell in love, and started a family. He grew old alongside Eve again, said goodbye to his parents again, and once more experienced the helplessness of watching his body grow weaker.
Then he died and returned to the beginning, trapped in a cycle that repeated itself with minor variations, so insignificant that they barely concealed the artificial nature of that existence.
With each new life, the memories of the previous one grew blurrier. Conversations with his parents began to blend together, the faces of those he had loved lost their details, and the experiences that had once left a mark on his heart became vague sensations, resembling fragments of a dream forgotten upon waking. Jonathan stopped wondering why he felt an inexplicable sadness whenever he looked at the night sky, just as he stopped trying to understand the sense of loss that accompanied him during certain moments of his life.
It always ended up disappearing.
His mother would call him to dinner, Eve would welcome him with a smile, or his daughter would run toward him with her arms open, and then everything would seem perfect again. Little by little, Jonathan forgot that another life had ever existed, one in which he had fought unimaginable horrors and shouldered responsibilities beyond the comprehension of any ordinary person.
He forgot the Dark Tower, forgot the battles that had shaped his existence, and even began to lose the certainty that he had ever been anyone other than the happy man growing old alongside his family.
The cruelest part was that he felt no suffering throughout the process. There were no chains binding him, nor was there a voice ordering him to abandon his memories. Happiness did all the work for him, convincing him that he did not need to recover what he had lost because he already possessed everything he could ever wish for.
And as Jonathan learned to live again and again, something inside him quietly faded away.
It was not his ability to love, nor his desire to protect others. It was the part of himself that understood that even the most beautiful moments could disappear, that no promise guaranteed a future, and that this was precisely why every moment spent with the people he loved held irreplaceable value.
The dream would not allow him to understand this.
In that world, losses could always be repaired, and time would always return whatever it had taken from him.
Jonathan no longer needed to accept death, learn to live with absence, or find the strength to carry on after a defeat. He only had to wait for the next beginning, where everything would be beautiful again and no one would ask him to bear the weight of his memories.
Without realizing it, he was forgetting how to live in a world where things did not always go right.
And just as he was about to lose himself completely, an old voice of his own, one he recognized, reminded him, "Jonathan Belmont, you have to wake up."