Breath came first.
Not air—cold. It cut its way into Alex's lungs, sharp and invasive, scraping against the inside of his chest until his body jerked in protest. He gasped, the sound breaking loose before he could stop it, and dragged in another breath just as harsh.
It hurt.
Not the clean pain of something sharp or sudden, but a deep, spreading ache that seemed to have settled into him from the inside out. His ribs protested with every rise and fall of his chest. His head throbbed, heavy and slow, as if it were lagging a half-second behind the rest of him.
Alex groaned and shifted.
Stone pressed into his shoulder.
The sensation was immediate and undeniable—cold, rough, unyielding. It bit through fabric and into skin, grounding him with a clarity that made his breath catch.
Stone?
His eyes fluttered open.
At first, there was only darkness. Not the flat black of a closed room, but something layered and uneven. Shapes pressed at the edges of his vision, refusing to settle into focus. He blinked hard, once, twice, his lashes sticky with moisture.
The darkness loosened.
Leaves came into view above him—dark shapes overlapping one another, their edges blurred by shadow. They weren't moving much. Just enough to suggest a faint breeze high overhead, far above where he lay.
Alex sucked in a breath and pushed himself upright too quickly.
The world lurched violently.
His vision tunneled, gray creeping in from the edges as nausea surged up hard and fast. He gagged and dropped back down, bracing himself on his hands as the ground spun beneath him. The pain in his head flared sharply and insistent, forcing a low sound out of his throat before he could stop it.
He stayed like that for a moment—on his hands and knees, breathing shallowly, waiting for the spinning to pass.
When it did, it left behind a deep, hollow ache.
The smell hit him then.
Wet leaves. Cold earth. Rot pressed thin enough to breathe.
It filled his nose and mouth, thick and unmistakable. Not the faint suggestion from before—not something imagined or lingering—but immediate and overwhelming.
"No," he whispered.
The word felt small in his mouth. Insufficient.
It fogged faintly in front of his face.
Alex stared at the condensation, his breath slowing despite the way his heart hammered in his chest.
Fog.
He lifted his hands slowly, holding them up where he could see them. They shook—not violently, but enough that he noticed. Pale skin stood out against the dark background. Dirt smeared his palms and clung beneath his nails. There was a thin cut across one knuckle, already darkened, the skin around it stiff with drying blood.
His sleeves were damp.
Not just cool—wet. The fabric clung unpleasantly to his wrists and forearms, stiff in places where it had soaked through. When he shifted, the cold bit harder, seeping deeper.
This wasn't his room.
The realization settled slowly, sinking its weight into him rather than striking all at once.
Alex turned his head.
Trees surrounded him.
Not scattered. Not spaced like a park. They grew thick and close together, trunks rising straight and dark, their bark rough and furrowed beneath patches of pale moss. Roots broke through the ground in twisted ridges, half-buried beneath layers of decaying leaves.
The canopy overhead knitted together densely, branches overlapping until the sky was little more than a dull, gray suggestion between them. The light that filtered down felt tired, thinned by distance and obstruction, as if it had already been used elsewhere.
The forest was quiet.
Not empty.
Just… still.
Alex became acutely aware of the sound of his own breathing—too loud, too rough in the hush around him. He swallowed and forced himself to slow it, counting silently until the rhythm steadied.
This is a dream.
The thought settled into him with the familiar weight of explanation. It didn't solve anything, not really, but it gave the moment edges again—something to hold on to.
Dreams had rules. Not sensible ones, but consistent ones. They borrowed pieces from waking life and rearranged them, exaggerated them, sharpened details until they felt almost real. This—cold, smell, pain—was just his mind being thorough.
Overcompensating.
Alex stayed where he was, kneeling in the leaves, letting the forest exist without engaging it. He kept his eyes unfocused, gaze drifting instead of fixing on anything too clearly. In dreams, attention made things worse. The more you stared, the more solid they became.
He breathed slowly, counting again.
One. Two. Three.
The fog from his breath puffed out and vanished.
Okay, he thought. Lucid enough. That's good.
His heart was still racing, but he told himself that was normal. Dreams loved adrenaline. They fed on it. The trick was not to give them more than they deserved.
Alex lowered himself back onto his heels and let his hands rest loosely in his lap. The leaves crinkled softly beneath the movement, damp and brittle at the same time. He noted the sound and then deliberately dismissed it.
Background noise.
He closed his eyes.
The darkness behind his lids was immediate and thick. For a second, relief flickered—this was usually the part where the scene dissolved, where the mind gave up and slid sideways into something else.
Nothing happened.
The forest remained.
Alex opened his eyes again, slower this time.
The trees hadn't moved. The light hadn't shifted. The same rough trunk stood directly in front of him, its bark split and ridged, moss clinging stubbornly to the grooves.
Persistent dream, then.
He huffed out a breath that might have been a laugh if it hadn't come out so thin. "Figures," he muttered, the word barely carrying in the stillness.
His voice sounded wrong here—too flat, too absorbed by the space around him. Dreams did that too. They swallowed sound when they wanted to make a point.
Alex rubbed his hands together, more to feel the motion than for warmth. The friction was dulled by moisture, his palms sliding instead of catching. He grimaced slightly.
Cold was a popular trick. His mind was good at simulating it, especially when he was exhausted. Especially after waking up shivering, sore, already half-convinced something was wrong.
That didn't mean this place was real.
He pushed himself to his feet again, slower now, testing his balance. The forest tilted only slightly this time before settling. His legs felt stiff, reluctant, as if they'd been folded wrong for too long.
"Okay," he said quietly. "Okay."
Saying things out loud helped. It made him feel like a participant instead of a prop.
Alex took a tentative step forward.
The ground dipped unexpectedly, soft earth giving way beneath his heel. He corrected automatically, arms lifting for balance. Leaves shifted and slid underfoot, releasing another wave of that damp, rotting smell.
He stopped.
Dreams responded to movement.
Sometimes they let you wander. Sometimes they punished it. He waited, half-expecting something to rush out from between the trees, or for the ground to give way entirely.
Nothing did.
The forest remained stubbornly indifferent.
Alex exhaled slowly and took another step, then another, moving with careful deliberation. Each footfall felt too detailed, too specific—the crunch of leaves, the resistance of soil—but he forced himself not to dwell on it.
Details didn't mean reality.
It just meant his brain was being thorough again.
He glanced down at himself as he walked, inventorying the familiar things. His clothes were the same ones he'd been wearing earlier. Shoes intact. Sleeves rolled just slightly, the way he always did without thinking.
Consistency mattered. Dreams were bad at it.
This one, apparently, had decided to try harder.
Alex swallowed and kept moving.
The trees didn't part for him. He had to weave between them, brush past low branches that snagged lightly at his sleeves. The contact made him flinch despite himself.
"Stop it," he murmured, more to his body than to the dream. "You know this isn't—"
He broke off as something sharp pressed briefly against his palm.
Alex jerked his hand back on reflex, heart jumping.
A thin branch jutted out from the undergrowth, snapped at an angle that left its end jagged. He stared at it, annoyance flaring first, fear second.
"Right," he said under his breath. "Of course."
Dream logic. Obstacles. Minor hazards. Nothing serious.
He flexed his fingers once, then let his hand drop back to his side, deliberately not looking too closely at it. If he didn't focus, the sensation would fade. It always did.
He started walking again, faster this time, as if momentum might carry him out of the scene altogether.
The forest didn't change.
The light stayed the same dull gray. The air stayed cold. The silence followed him, unbroken.
Alex's jaw tightened.
"This is taking longer than usual," he said, forcing calm into his voice.
His heart continued to beat too fast.
Still, he didn't run.
Running made dreams worse.