I found myself standing on a street I recognized in Athera—or thought I did.
The pavement beneath my feet was cracked asphalt, the kind of District's maintenance crews never quite got around to fixing in the lower-income districts.
Buildings rose on either side, their facades worn but familiar, sporting faded advertisements for products I'd seen a thousand times before.
The air even smelled right, exhaust fumes mixed with street vendor food, that particular blend of grease and spice that clung to every commercial district in the city.
But something was wrong.
My parallel thinking kicked in automatically, the way it always did when I slept. One thread monitored my physical body for threats while the others handled restoration and memory consolidation.
Except this time, instead of keeping watch over my sleeping form, this additional thread was actively making the dream more immersive, feeding sensory details into my consciousness with meticulous precision.
