DREAM ME

Dream Me: Chapter 8 - Don’t Forget Me

Morning came, and for once, I wasn’t afraid of it.

The alarm rang, sharp and insistent. Normally, I would have groaned, pulled the blanket tighter, bracing for another day of endless sameness. But today, I rose easily, as though the weight I’d carried for years had finally slipped off my shoulders.

The apartment was the same, messy table, chipped mug, dust lining the windowpane, but it looked different. Alive. The light seemed clearer, as if my eyes had learned a new way of seeing.

I caught myself humming as I made coffee. I hadn’t hummed in years.

When I sat down at my desk, sketchbook open before me, my hand didn’t tremble with hesitation. The pencil moved freely, strokes confident, lines bold. The colors in my head spilled out, unafraid. I realized, with a kind of aching joy, that I wasn’t drawing for approval anymore. I was drawing because I wanted to.

Dream Me’s courage lived in my fingers now. Her laughter echoed in my chest. Her freedom pulsed in my blood. She was me, and I was her.

And yet…

When I looked up at the mirror hanging crooked above the desk, I swore I saw her. Not as reflection, separate, watching, smiling faintly, like a shadow lingering just beyond the glass.

Her voice brushed the edge of my mind, soft as a lullaby:

“Don’t forget me.”

I shivered, not with fear, but with something deeper. A reminder. A warning.

I nodded, whispering to the empty room, “Never.”

Because I understood now: she wasn’t a ghost I could banish, nor a dream I could escape. She was the promise I had made to myself as a child, the promise never to stop dreaming, never to stop living.

If I ever forgot her, if I ever buried her again beneath fear and duty, she would return. Maybe in another mirror. Maybe in another bed. Maybe stronger.

And maybe then, I wouldn’t get the choice to merge, we would fight for control.

So I chose to remember.

I closed the sketchbook, picked up my bag, and stepped out into the sunlight, not surviving, not drifting. And somewhere, in every shadow and every reflection, Dream Me walked beside me

Not haunting. Not warning. Just there.

Forever.