DREAM ME

Dream Me: Chapter 2-A Mirror That Talks Back

I didn’t sleep that night.

How could I, when sleep itself had crawled out of my head and was now walking through my apartment?

She moved about the place like she owned it. She opened my books, traced her fingers along the spines, lingered on titles I hadn’t touched in years. She looked at the postcards pinned to my wall and smiled as if she’d been there when I bought them.

And all the while, I sat hunched on the edge of the couch, watching her like someone watches a live bomb.

“You’re not real,” I said finally, voice low, as though speaking louder might make her solidify.

She turned, eyes glimmering in the dim light. “Real enough to stand here. Real enough for you to see me.”

I clenched my fists. “You’re… a hallucination. A breakdown. That’s all this is.”

“Then why can’t you look away?” she asked softly.

Her question sank into me like ink into paper.

By morning, she was still there. She didn’t eat, didn’t drink, just moved like a shadow tethered to my body. I went into the bathroom to splash water on my face, hoping the cold sting would shock me back into sense. But when I looked up at the mirror, I nearly screamed.

It wasn’t just me staring back.

Dream Me’s reflection stood beside mine, even though in the bathroom itself, I was alone. She leaned closer to the mirror’s surface, her lips nearly touching the glass.

“You run from yourself even here,” she murmured, her voice echoing inside my head though her mouth barely moved. “Do you know how long I’ve waited for you to notice me?”

My hands gripped the sink. “Stop.”

Her reflection smiled. “I’m not your enemy. I’m your shadow. Your wish. Your truest self.”

“Then why do you feel like a ghost?”

Her smile dimmed. “Because you’ve treated me like one. Every dream, you push me aside. Every waking moment, you bury me. But I am still here. And I will not vanish just because you refuse to see me.”

A c***k splintered through the mirror’s corner with a faint tick. My stomach twisted. I staggered back, nearly slipping.

When I blinked, the c***k was gone. My reflection was normal again. Just me red-eyed, shaken, terrified.

I rushed out of the bathroom. Dream Me sat calmly on the couch, watching me with unreadable eyes.

“You’re losing the line,” she said. “Between your world and mine.”

I wanted to scream, to throw her out, to claw back some sense of reality. But deep down, a small, traitorous part of me whispered: Maybe this is what you wanted all along.