Dreams of a writer

There is a saying I’ve always liked more than I should. It says, Life is a dream to the wise, a game to the fool, a comedy to the rich, and a strategy to the poor. People loved throwing that quote around as if it held the answer to life, and the funny thing is… nobody ever tells you where you’re supposed to place yourself inside that sentence. Like you’re born, handed a script, and expected to figure out the genre on your own. Personally. I had no idea where I belonged, maybe life was a dream. Maybe it was a cruel joke. Or maybe it was simply a story waiting to be written. Growing up, everyone tells you the same thing. "Don't let your dreams stay dreams." Wonderful advice. Except nobody ever tells you what to do when your dreams are impossible. Mine always were. Sometimes I imagined my guardian angels staring down from Heaven, whispering among themselves. "How did we get her?" "No idea. She was probably switched at birth." "Should we... do something?" "Too late. She discovered books." Honestly… I'd ask the same questions. Maybe I lost my sanity the day I decided to become a writer, or perhaps it disappeared years earlier when I fell hopelessly in love with fictional men who set kingdoms ablaze for the women they loved. Either way… There was no saving me now. "Earth to Blair." Something snapped inches away from my nose. I blinked. Once. Twice. The blurry world sharpened until Hannah's face came into focus. She stood with one hand planted firmly on her hip while the other remained suspended in the air, ready to snap again if necessary. Her emerald-green eyes narrowed dramatically. "I know writers daydream," she sighed, "but you don't daydream." She pointed accusingly at me. "You disappear." I frowned. "I do not." "You absolutely do." "I was thinking." "You looked dead." "I was philosophizing." "You were staring at a wall." "...It was an interesting wall." She laughed. The sound bounced around the apartment… Or rather—The apartment that no longer looked like mine. I slowly turned in a circle. The bookshelves were empty. The walls were bare. Even the tiny succulent I'd somehow managed to keep alive had disappeared. Only cardboard boxes remained, neatly stacked by the front door. I blinked again. "...You actually packed everything." Hannah folded her arms proudly. "I told you." "When I asked for help moving, I expected emotional support." "You got free labour instead." "I wasn't really prepared for the efficiency." She smirked. "I know." I looked around one more time before shaking my head in disbelief. "You finished before my brain even realized we started." "I work fast." "You work like a raccoon that broke into an energy drink factory." She gasped dramatically. "I'm taking that as a compliment." "It wasn't." "It is now." Despite myself, I laughed. God… I was going to miss her. "So..." I leaned against one of the boxes. "You're awfully cheerful." She smiled far too innocently. "What makes you say that?" "The suspicious sparkle in your eyes." "I don't have a suspicious sparkle." "You absolutely do." She tried—and failed—to suppress her grin. "...Maybe." I sighed. "Is this because you're getting my apartment?" She placed both hands over her heart."Should I lie?" "Please don't, you're terrible at it." She shrugged unapologetically. "It's a nice apartment." "So you admit it." "I admit nothing." "You've been planning this." "No comment." Traitor. After another laugh, the room slowly fell quiet. Hannah's smile softened. She tucked a loose strand of chestnut-brown hair behind her ear before asking the question she'd been trying not to ask all morning. "...Why are you really leaving?" I looked away. Out the apartment window. The city stretched endlessly before me. Concrete. Traffic. Noise. The same streets I'd walked almost every day. The same skyline I'd watched from this very window countless nights while chasing deadlines and staring at blank pages. "I need a change." "You've said that." "I mean it." She waited. Patiently. I rubbed the back of my neck. "I've been stuck." "Writer's block?" "Worse." "Worse?" I nodded. "My imagination feels... trapped." She frowned."I don't understand." "I've been writing the same walls for years." "What?" "The same cafés, the same streets, the same apartment buildings, the same city." I looked outside again. "I need somewhere quieter. Somewhere greener, smewhere that doesn't wake me up with taxi drivers arguing at three in the morning." She crossed her arms. "So..." I smiled. "A forest." Silence. Then— "...A forest?" "Yes." "A literal forest?" "Yes." "The kind with large big trees?" I blinked. "...Do you know another kind?" "The kind with wild animals?" "I mean.." "The kind where people disappear?" "That's mostly horror movies." "The kind where bears exist?" "...not every part of the forest has bears." She narrowed her eyes. "You're avoiding my point." "I know." "You're moving into the middle of nowhere." "I'm moving into Willow Creek." "Which is inside a forest." "It's a town." "A tiny town I have never heard of." "It's peaceful, also you don't even watch the local news. How are you even gonna know about other towns?.” "True, but it's isolated." "It's beautiful." "It's terrifying." I laughed. "You worry too much." "I worry the correct amount." "I've camped before." "You've camped for weekends." "I've hiked." "You've hiked with tour guides." "I'll adapt." "You'll panic the first time your Wi-Fi disappears." I opened my mouth and then closed it. "...Okay, that one is fair." She smirked triumphantly. "I knew it." I rolled my eyes. "You'll survive."She mumbled. "I know." I agreed. "You'll make friends." "I know." "You'll finally finish your novel." "I hope so." "And maybe..." She hesitated."...you'll meet someone." I groaned so loudly it echoed around the apartment. "Hannah." "What?" "No." "Why not?" "Because we're not doing this again." "We absolutely are." She stepped closer. "You are twenty-seven years old." "I know." "Single." "I know." "Painfully single." "I'm aware." "And your standards are ridiculous." "They're not ridiculous." "They're refined." "They're fictional." "They're realistic." She stared at me."...Blair." "What?" "You once rejected a guy because he wasn't emotionally damaged enough." "I never said that." "You literally said—and I quote—'He communicates too well. Where's the trauma?'" Heat rushed into my cheeks. "...I was joking." "Were you?" "...Mostly." She burst into laughter. I groaned into my hands. Reading romance novels had ruined me. Writing them had completely destroyed whatever common sense I once possessed. How was I supposed to find an ordinary boyfriend after spending years creating men capable of burning kingdoms for love? Where was my morally grey villain? My dangerous mafia boss? My cursed immortal? My mysterious werewolf alpha? Exactly. They only existed inside books. Reality was painfully disappointing. Hannah wiped tears from laughing too hard. "You need therapy." "I need better men." "You need sunlight." "I need fictional characters to become real." She blinked. "...See?" "I know. I'm beyond saving." She walked over and hugged me. For a moment…Neither of us spoke. "You'll call?" "Every week." "You promise?" "I promise." She squeezed tighter. "And if some giant wolf chases you..." "I'll politely ask it to stop." She pulled away, laughing. "I'll miss you." "I'll miss you too.” · · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · · The city disappeared behind me one kilometre at a time. Glass skyscrapers gave way to small neighbourhoods. Neighbourhoods faded into open farmland. Before long, even the familiar hum of traffic had become nothing more than a distant memory swallowed by endless stretches of road. I rested one hand on the steering wheel while the other drummed absent-mindedly against the window. Leaving my old life behind should have terrified me. Instead… I felt strangely light. Every expectation I'd carried for years seemed to disappear farther into my rear-view mirror. A smile tugged at my lips. "Freedom," I whispered. My subconscious snorted. Freedom? "Yes." You've driven for six hours and your back sounds like bubble wrap every time you move. "...That's not the point." You're already talking to yourself. "I'm a writer." That's not an excuse. "It absolutely is." The argument ended there. Mostly because I lost. The first night found me pulling into a modest roadside motel just after sunset. Its flickering neon sign read: WILLOW PINES MOTEL One of the letters buzzed before going dark. Comforting. "Looks like a place where horror movies begin," I muttered. My subconscious agreed immediately. Exactly. "You know... your job is supposed to reassure me." No. "It literally isn't?" My job is to keep us alive. "By insulting every decision I make?" Correct. "...Fair enough." The parking lot held only a handful of vehicles. A rusty pickup truck. A dusty SUV. An old motorcycle parked beneath a dying streetlamp. I grabbed my handbag before walking toward reception. A tiny brass bell sat on the counter. Ding. Footsteps echoed from somewhere in the back. A teenage boy appeared a few seconds later, his dark hair sticking up in every direction as though he'd just rolled out of bed. He looked about sixteen. Maybe seventeen. "Evening," he said with a polite smile. "Need a room?" "Please." "Just for tonight?" I nodded. "One night." He tapped lazily across his computer. "Cash or card?" "Cash." His eyebrows lifted slightly. "Old school." "I've been called worse." He chuckled before handing over an old-fashioned brass key attached to a heavy wooden tag. Room Twelve. "No breakfast until seven," he explained. "The Wi-Fi works... when it feels like it, and if you hear strange noises outside..." I blinked. "...Yes?" He shrugged. "It's usually just coyotes." Usually. Not exactly comforting. "Good to know." The room wasn't terrible. It also wasn't good. A small television, faded floral wallpaper, one double bed, one bedside lamp and one suspiciously squeaky floorboard. I dropped my bags beside the bed before collapsing face-first onto the mattress. "Oh..." The words escaped in a long sigh. "My..." Another sigh. "...Back." Three days of driving had officially declared war on my spine. I rolled over until I was staring at the cracked ceiling. Silence. Complete silence.No neighbours arguing. No apartment upstairs deciding midnight was the perfect time to rearrange furniture. Just… Nothing. I hadn't realised how loud the city had been until it disappeared. Funny. People spend their entire lives trying to escape silence. I'd spent mine trying to find it.Sleep refused to come. Instead, my thoughts wandered somewhere they always seemed to drift. Books. Stories. Dreams. When had I started wanting impossible things? Maybe when I read my first fantasy novel. Maybe when I wrote my first one. Reality had never stood a chance after that. I'd spent years falling in love with fictional worlds while pretending this one was enough. Heroes existed. Villains existed. Soulmates existed. Just...Not here. Not outside the pages I'd written. I laughed softly. "No wonder I'm single." Any normal woman wanted flowers. I wanted a morally questionable man with unresolved childhood trauma and enough emotional baggage to sink a cruise ship. My standards were beyond repair. Completely beyond repair, my subconscious added helpfully. "I know." Therapy. "I know." Medication. "I know." Less reading. "...Absolutely not." · · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · · Morning arrived sooner than expected. I grabbed coffee from a petrol station. It tasted suspiciously like disappointment. Still... Caffeine was caffeine. By midday I was back on the road. Hours passed. The roads became narrower. The mountains taller. Cell signal weaker. Until finally… The GPS spoke. "Continue for two hundred metres.” Then— "Turn right.” I frowned. "Right?" There wasn't another road. Just...Gravel. A weathered wooden sign leaned crookedly beneath towering pine trees. It read: WILLOW CREEK Population: 1,842 "Well..." I swallowed. "This is happening." The tyres crunched over loose gravel. Instantly, the world changed. The towering trees swallowed the sunlight. Branches arched overhead, forming a tunnel of emerald leaves. The air felt cooler.. The forest seemed endless. Beautiful. Yet strangely… Alive. "I think I'm gonna like it here."