WHEN THE DREAM FOUND ME
Episode One:
When the Dream Found Me
Sleep didn’t come that night.
I lay on my bed long past midnight, staring into the dark. The city hummed outside—cars moving slowly, a dog barking far away, electricity thrumming in the walls. My body was exhausted, but my mind refused rest. Thoughts drifted in and out, heavy and unfinished, like pieces of a puzzle I could never solve.
At some point, I slipped under without realizing it.
The dream didn’t start violently. No sudden fall, no jolt. It was gentle, like sinking into warm water. I noticed the silence first. Not empty silence, but alive. It pressed against me, patient, expectant, like something was waiting.
Then I felt him.
Not footsteps. Not sound. Just… presence. Close, too close, and it made my breath hitch.
I turned.
He was there—tall, still, wrapped in shadow. My eyes searched for a face, but there was nothing. No eyes. No mouth. No expression. Just smooth, blank skin where a face should have been.
Fear rose in my chest, sharp and sudden.
But it didn’t last.
Something else came instead. Something familiar. Something I couldn’t name. As if I had known him long before, in another life I couldn’t remember.
“You came back,” he said.
The voice was calm, low, gentle. Not in my ears, but inside me, vibrating in my chest.
“I… don’t understand,” I whispered. “Where am I?”
He didn’t answer immediately. He stepped closer, and I felt the heat from him, the quiet certainty in the way he moved. My hands trembled. I should have pulled away. I should have run. But I didn’t.
“This is where you let yourself breathe,” he finally said.
I shook my head. “You’re not real.”
He tilted his head slightly, like he was amused. “Does that matter?”
His fingers brushed mine. Light. Almost nothing. But it burned through me, heat spreading up my arm, down my spine. My skin reacted before my brain could even catch up. I should have screamed. I should have pushed him away.
I didn’t.
Something inside me softened. A loneliness I had buried rose to the surface. Aching. Raw. Exposed.
“Who are you?” My voice barely held.
He leaned closer, the emptiness of his face just inches from mine. The shadows around us pressed in, heavy, almost alive.
“I am the one you think about when the world goes quiet,” he said. “The one you call without knowing it.”
My chest tightened. My throat burned. My fingers twitched, wanting to reach for him, wanting to know if he was real. Wanting to stay, even though everything screamed danger.
His hand closed around mine—not forceful, not trapping. Just holding.
I realized something terrifying. I didn’t want him to let go.
The shadows moved again, shifting, growing heavier, pressing closer. My breath caught, panic rising, but I didn’t pull away.
I woke up gasping.
Sunlight spilled through my curtains. My room was normal—messy desk, quiet walls, ordinary life. But my heart was still racing. My hand still tingled, as if someone had been holding it moments ago.
I sat there for a long time. Tried to tell myself it was just a dream. Tried to convince myself it didn’t matter.
But deep down, I knew.
Dreams don’t feel like that.
And somehow… I knew he would come back.
