Dreamed You, Found You

Chapter 3 ## Return

She went to bed early the next night.

Not because she was tired—she was tired, but that wasn't the reason. She wanted to go back. Needed to. The grey city had planted something in her chest, a hook she couldn't name, and she couldn't stop thinking about it.

Sari turned off the light at nine-thirty, earlier than she had slept since she was a child. The rain had started again, softer this time, a steady whisper on the roof. She lay on her back with her hands folded on her stomach, staring at the dark ceiling.

*Come back*, she thought. Not a prayer. Not quite a wish. Just a thought, aimed at nothing, at everything.

The fan spun. The frogs called. The heat pressed down.

She closed her eyes.

---

The grey city returned.

Same window. Same sharp-edged skyline. Same cold air that didn't belong to any place she had ever known.

But this time, she saw him.

He stood by the window, his back to her, his silhouette cut against the grey light. Broad shoulders. Tall—much taller than she had imagined. His head was turned slightly, as if he was looking at something outside, something she couldn't see.

She took a step forward.

Her feet made no sound. Nothing made sound here. The city was silent, not in the way of a sleeping village—the soft rustle of palm fronds, the distant bark of a dog—but in the way of a photograph. Still. Empty. Waiting.

He turned.

She couldn't see his face. The light was behind him, washing out his features, leaving only the shape of him. But she felt him look at her. His gaze was heavy, not in a threatening way—in a way that made her feel seen. Really seen. The way you feel seen when someone looks at you and doesn't look away.

Her chest tightened.

She opened her mouth to speak. *Who are you?* The words formed on her tongue, but when they left her lips, there was nothing. No sound. Just the movement of her mouth, useless and small.

His lips moved too. He was saying something. She could see the shape of the words, but they reached her like echoes from underwater—muffled, distant, gone before she could catch them.

She tried again. *I can't hear you.*

Nothing.

She stepped closer. One step. Two. The distance between them shrank, but the silence didn't. His face remained a blur of light and shadow. She could see the line of his jaw, the set of his shoulders, the way his hands hung at his sides—not relaxed, not tense. Waiting.

*Who are you?*

His mouth moved again. This time, she thought she caught something. One word, maybe. The shape of it.

*Stay?*

Or maybe she imagined it.

The dream broke before she could ask.

---

She woke with tears on her face.

Not sobbing—just silent tears, sliding from the corners of her eyes into her hair. She lay still for a long moment, staring at the ceiling, feeling the wetness cool on her skin.

*What is wrong with me?*

She sat up slowly. The room was dark. The rain had stopped. Through her window, she could see the first pale light of dawn gathering over the rice paddies.

Her notebook was still on the bedside table. She picked it up, opened it to the page she had started yesterday, and read her own words.

*Grey city. Tall buildings. A window.*

*Someone behind me.*

She added a new line.

*He turned around. I couldn't see his face. He tried to speak. I couldn't hear him.*

*I think he said "stay."*

She stared at the word. Stay. Such a small word. Such a strange thing to say to a stranger.

But he wasn't a stranger, was he? That was the problem. That was the whole problem. She had never seen him before in her life, but when he looked at her, she felt—

She didn't know what she felt.

She closed the notebook and set it down.

The house was waking up. She could hear Nenek moving in the kitchen—the soft clink of a kettle, the scrape of a chair on the wooden floor. The smell of ginger and palm sugar drifted through the walls.

Sari got up, pulled on a sarong, and walked to the kitchen.

Nenek was seventy years old, small and wiry, with grey hair pulled back in a tight bun and eyes that missed nothing. She stood by the stove, stirring a pot of *wedang jahe*—ginger tea, the kind she made every morning, sweet and hot and sharp.

"You're up early," Nenek said without turning around.

"Couldn't sleep."

"Ah." Nenek ladled tea into two cups and handed one to Sari. Their fingers brushed. Nenek's eyes narrowed slightly. "You've been crying."

Sari touched her cheek. It was still damp. "I had a strange dream."

Nenek sat down across from her, wrapping her hands around her cup. The steam curled between them. "Tell me."

"It's nothing."

Nenek didn't push. She never pushed. She just waited, patient as the rain, sipping her tea and watching Sari with those quiet eyes.

Sari looked down into her cup. The ginger floated in pale gold liquid, and she could see her own reflection—dark hair loose, eyes puffy, lips pressed together.

"I keep dreaming about the same person," she said finally. "A man. I don't know who he is. I've never seen him before. But when I dream about him, I feel..."

She trailed off.

Nenek set down her cup. "There's a Javanese saying," she said. "When you dream of a stranger and wake up missing them, your soul has found its other half. But it's not time yet. So it shows you only a shadow."

Sari looked up. "You believe that?"

Nenek smiled, the lines around her eyes deepening. "I believe what I see. And I see my granddaughter waking up with tears on her face and a question in her heart."

Sari didn't answer.

She drank her tea, let the ginger burn her throat, and thought about the shape of his mouth when he said *stay*.

Or when she imagined he said it.

She couldn't tell the difference anymore.

---

That night, she went to bed with her notebook open on the pillow beside her.

She had made a decision.

She would write down every dream. Every detail. Every color, every shadow, every word she thought she heard. She would keep a record, because if this was happening—if this was real, if he was real—she needed proof.

Not for Nenek. Not for Ratna. For herself.

She closed her eyes and waited for the grey city to take her back.

*Stay*, she thought.

And then she was gone.