DREAM ME

The key clicked in the lock with a tired finality. I pushed the door open, shoulders aching from the weight of the day, suitcase dragging behind me like a stubborn child. The apartment smelled faintly of dust and old jasmine incense. Familiar, Ordinary, util I saw her. At first, I thought it was a trick of the light shadows playing against the curtains, the city’s neon glow pooling on the sheets. But no. Someone was in my bed. Curled under the blanket, breathing softly, hair spilling across my pillow like liquid ink. My heart slammed against my ribs. My mind scrambled break-in, thief, wrong apartment? But the sight rooted me to the doorway. Because the girl in my bed was me. Not similar. Not cousin-close or twin-close. Me. Down to the small scar carved above her eyebrow—the one from when I fell from the mango tree as a child. Her lips parted slightly in sleep, and I saw the way her chest rose and fell in the same rhythm mine did when I drifted off after exhaustion. I nearly dropped my suitcase. As if sensing the shift in air, she stirred. Eyelids fluttered open. For a moment, her gaze was unfocused, dream-heavy. Then her eyes my eyes locked on me. “Oh,” she whispered. Her voice was mine, but softer, layered with something… unreal. “You’re awake already.” My throat tightened. I stepped back, bumping into the doorframe. “Who the hell are you?” She sat up slowly, her movements languid, almost liquid. The blanket slipped off her shoulders, revealing that she even wore the same threadbare T-shirt I had tossed in the laundry basket two nights ago. “I’m you,” she said simply. “The you that lives when you sleep.” The words punched the air out of me. I laughed, sharp, nervous, bitter. “This isn’t funny. How did you get in here? Did someone put you up to this?” But she only tilted her head, studying me with a sadness I didn’t recognize, even though it was carved with my own features. “You don’t believe me. You never do. Not even in dreams.” Her calmness frightened me more than anger would have. “What do you want?” I demanded, my voice breaking. She slid her feet to the floor, standing now. For every step she took closer, I felt like the walls of my apartment leaned in, pressing me. “To remind you,” she said, almost tenderly. “You’ve forgotten who you are.” The room felt colder. My skin prickled. And though I wanted to run, I stood frozen, staring at myself, at the impossible reflection that wasn’t in a mirror. For the first time, I realized this wasn’t a stranger. This was the version of me I met every night in dreams, the version that laughed without restraint, that lived without fear.