Sir Alex Canva.
Wait. Why were there three men in my mental queue? I stared into the darkness. "…Is this what female leads feel like in harem novels?" Because wow. No wonder they're always confused. My lips twitched. My hair was long enough to hide my grin even as I lay there, staring at the ceiling like a fool.
Then finally sleep came. Then—The dream came. It wasn't vivid at first.
Just fragments. Disjointed impressions. Faces without names. Too many people packed together—renegades, mercenaries, ugly unbathed men with crooked teeth and worse intentions. The air felt wrong. Heavy. Stale. The western dead land—dry soil, cracked and lifeless. No green. No birds. No wind worth mentioning. Just dirt and decay stretched to the horizon.
There was no warning. No soft transition. No drifting.
Just impact. The world snapped into focus like a screen flaring to life, and I had the distinct, unsettling awareness that I wasn't dreaming.
