The apartment smelled of burnt toast and yesterday's coffee when I woke up again. I had fallen asleep on the couch sometime after three, laptop still open on my thighs, screen dark, cursor blinking uselessly in the middle of an unfinished line of code. The fan in the ceiling rattled once, twice, then settled into its usual uneven drone. Sunlight came through the blinds in narrow, slanted bars that cut across the carpet and caught on the dust motes drifting in slow, lazy spirals. I sat up slowly, neck stiff, mouth dry, the same dull ache behind my eyes that had been there every morning since the first dream.
I rubbed my face with both hands, feeling the stubble scrape against my palms. The dream—or whatever it had been—hadn't faded. If anything it had settled deeper, like sediment in still water. I could still feel the exact texture of the black stone under my feet in that cavern, the way the silver light from the hooded man's eyes seemed to slide across my skin without ever warming it. I could still hear the slow drip of stalactites, the absolute silence of the enthroned figures staring at blank walls. And I could still feel the moment I pushed off the window ledge, the wind rushing past my ears, the golden light exploding from my feet to slow my fall just enough to keep my legs from snapping.
I stood. The floor creaked in the same spot it always did. I walked to the kitchenette, filled the kettle, set it on the burner. The flame clicked on with its familiar blue hiss. Ordinary sounds. Ordinary motions. I leaned against the counter while the water heated, staring at the chipped mug sitting in the drying rack. The same mug I had rinsed last night. The same mug I had used every morning for the last two years.
The kettle whistled. I poured. Steam rose in a thin white column. I carried the mug to the window and looked out. The street below was the same: cars parked nose-to-tail, a delivery scooter weaving between pedestrians, the same overflowing trash bin on the corner that never got emptied on time. Normal life continued outside the glass. It didn't care that I had spent the night dreaming of a world where I could fly on bursts of golden light, where women begged for my seed like it was salvation, where silent figures sat on thrones in a cavern that felt more real than this apartment ever had.
I drank the coffee black. It tasted bitter and ordinary and grounding. I told myself again that dreams don't leave physical traces. No bruises on my ankle from the landing. No scrapes on my arms from branches in a forest that didn't exist. No lingering ache in my muscles from running a maze that couldn't possibly be real. Just the ordinary soreness of a body that had spent too many hours hunched over a laptop the day before.
But the dream kept pressing against the inside of my skull like a second set of thoughts running parallel to my own. Every time I blinked I saw the black stone thrones, the unmoving figures staring at blank walls, the hooded man's thin smile as he said the gallery was patient but he was less so. I set the mug down on the windowsill and rubbed my temples with both hands. The pressure helped for a second, then the images slid back in, uninvited.
I turned away from the window. Walked to the couch. Picked up my laptop. Opened it. The screen woke with a soft chime. The same unfinished line of code stared back at me from last night:
if (response.status === 200) {
I stared at it for a long moment. My fingers hovered over the keys. I couldn't remember what I had been trying to do. Couldn't remember why it mattered.
I closed the laptop.
Stood.
Walked to the door.
Opened it.
Stepped into the hallway.
The fluorescent light buzzed overhead.
I locked the door behind me.
Walked down the stairs.
Out into the street.
The city swallowed me the way it always did: noise, motion, indifference. Cars honked. A street vendor shouted about fresh bagels. A woman pushed a stroller past me, talking on her phone in rapid Spanish. I kept walking. No destination. Just movement. Because if I stopped, if I let myself think too long about the dream that refused to fade, I might start believing it wasn't a dream at all.
And that thought scared me more than anything.
I ended up at the park three blocks from my building. The same park I used to walk through on lunch breaks when I still bothered to leave the office. Benches lined the path, most of them empty this early. A few joggers passed me, earbuds in, breathing steady. An old man fed pigeons from a paper bag. A kid kicked a soccer ball against a low wall, the thump-thump-thump regular as a heartbeat.
I sat on the nearest bench. The wood was cold through my jeans. I leaned forward, elbows on knees, hands clasped between them. Watched the pigeons strut and peck. Watched the kid chase his ball when it rolled too far. Watched the joggers disappear around the curve of the path.
Normal life.
Safe life.
Boring life.
I closed my eyes.
The cavern appeared behind my lids instantly. Black stone. Silver veins. Stalactites dripping. Throned figures staring at blank walls. The hooded man's silver eyes watching me from the center platform.
I opened my eyes again.
The pigeons were still there. The kid still kicking his ball. The joggers still running.
I exhaled slowly through my nose.
It had to be a dream.
Dreams can feel real. Dreams can linger. Dreams can make you question everything for a day or two until they finally soften and slip away.
But this one hadn't softened.
It had sharpened.
Every time I tried to push it aside, it pushed back harder. The smell of ash. The cold bite of the stone. The exact weight of Liora's small body against mine. The sound of Kaia's husky laugh when I painted her tits white. The way Lirien's cunt clenched when I came inside her. The hooded man's voice saying "the crack chooses" as though it were the most obvious fact in any world.
I stood.
Walked.
Kept walking.
Past the park. Past the coffee shop on the corner. Past the bodega with the cat in the window. Past the construction site where the jackhammer rattled like machine-gun fire. Past everything familiar.
I didn't know where I was going.
I just knew I couldn't sit still.
Because if I sat still, if I let myself think too long about the dream that refused to fade, I might start believing it wasn't a dream at all.
And if it wasn't a dream, then everything I thought I knew about my life—about myself—was wrong.
The sun climbed higher. The city grew louder. People rushed past me on their way to jobs, to meetings, to lunches, to lives that made sense.
I kept walking.
Eventually I found myself at the riverfront. The same river I used to stare at when I needed to think. The water moved slow and brown under the midday light, carrying plastic bottles and driftwood and the occasional dead leaf. I leaned on the railing, forearms resting on the cold metal, watching the current carry everything downstream.
A gull cried overhead.
The wind smelled faintly of salt and diesel.
I closed my eyes again.
The cavern, the thrones and the hooded man were waiting.
I opened my eyes.
The river was still there.
The gull was still crying.
I took a breath and let it out slowly, then I turned around.
And started walking back the way I had come.
Because whether it was a dream or not, whether I had been pulled through some crack in reality or simply lost my mind for a few nights, one thing was certain.
I didn't want to always remain clueless.
As I reached the corner of my block, the usual morning bustle felt oddly muted, like someone had turned down the volume on the world. A delivery truck idled at the curb, exhaust curling lazily into the air, but the driver wasn't behind the wheel—he was standing on the sidewalk, staring straight at me with eyes that caught the light wrong, silver and luminous, the same impossible glow I'd seen in the dream. He didn't move. Didn't speak. Just watched, unblinking, while the truck's engine rumbled on without him. My stomach dropped. I blinked hard, half-expecting him to vanish like a mirage, but when my eyes opened again he was still there, the faintest curve of a thin smile tugging at his lips. Then he lifted one hand in a slow, deliberate wave, turned, and walked away down the alley beside the bodega—straight into the shadows that shouldn't have been deep enough to swallow him whole. The truck's engine cut off mid-rumble. Silence rushed in. And in the sudden quiet, I heard it again, soft and unmistakable, drifting from the alley like smoke: "Follow me."