Morning came without ceremony.
The alarm rang beside my bed, sharp and insistent, tearing through the quiet like it always did. I reached out blindly, silencing it after the third ring, and lay there for a moment longer than I should have.
The ceiling above me was familiar. Too familiar.
White. Cracked near the corner. Real.
The dream had already begun to slip away.
I remembered light—soft and pale—and a sense of closeness that had nothing to do with distance. But when I tried to recall details, my thoughts met resistance, as if the memory had been wrapped in fog.
Except for one thing.
The feeling.
A quiet ache pressed against my chest, subtle but persistent. It felt like missing someone whose name I had never learned.
I sat up slowly and swung my legs over the side of the bed. The floor was cold. Grounding. A reminder that I was awake.
In the mirror across the room, my reflection stared back at me. My face was clear, unmistakably human. I watched my own eyes for a moment, searching for something I couldn't name.
For reasons I didn't understand, I looked away first.
The day unfolded the way it always did.
Voices blended together. Time moved forward in pieces rather than moments. I responded when spoken to, did what was expected, and moved through spaces without leaving any trace of myself behind.
People passed me in hallways and streets, close enough to brush shoulders with, yet impossibly far away. I felt as though I existed slightly out of sync with everyone else—as if I were walking half a step behind reality.
At some point, I caught myself wondering what she would think of this world.
The thought stopped me in my tracks.
She had no face. No voice. No name.
And yet I was thinking of her as though she were real.
The rest of the day dragged on. By the time evening arrived, exhaustion weighed on me despite the lack of effort required to earn it. The sky darkened. Lights flickered on one by one. Life continued, indifferent to my silence.
Back in my room, night settled heavily.
This was when my thoughts became loud.
I lay on my bed, staring into the dark, replaying fragments of the dream—not images, but impressions. The closeness. The sadness. The way the silence between us had felt gentle instead of empty.
I tried to tell myself it had meant nothing.
That dreams were just dreams.
But my heart refused to listen.
I found myself hoping.
Not for answers.
Not for explanations.
Just for her.
As sleep crept in, I felt a strange pull, like standing at the edge of something unseen. My breathing slowed. The world faded.
Then—
Light.
Soft. Familiar.
I opened my eyes.
The pale sky stretched endlessly above me, just as it had before. The air was still. The silence deep and deliberate.
I was back.
My heart raced as I turned, scanning the empty field.
"She's here," I whispered, though I didn't know how I knew.
And then, at the edge of the dream—
A figure stood waiting.
This time, she was closer than before.
And she had taken a step toward me.