The dreams never stopped.
They came one after another—strangely connected, endlessly repeating.
They began, they ended, and then they began again. Sometimes I woke up only to fall straight back into another one, as if sleep itself had lost its boundaries.
Still, when morning came, I followed the same routine.
I took a shower.
I ate the rice I had cooked yesterday and kept in the fridge.
I went to work.
That ordinary life—simple, dull, predictable—felt strangely rewarding. Like proof that I still existed somewhere solid.
Yet even there, I could feel them.
The shadowy figures.
They were always watching.
No matter where I stood, no matter how crowded the place was, I felt their eyes pressing against my skin.
No.
Don't look at me.
Don't—
LOOK AWAY. PLEASE. JUST LOOK AWAY.
Why won't they stop?
Everyone is looking at me.
Everyone.
"Is this some kind of sick joke?" I muttered under my breath.
Get out. Get out. Get out.
"I know you're there," I whispered. My voice trembled. "I know someone is watching."
Stop looking.
My breath caught in my throat.
Gasp—
Haa… haa… haa...
I woke up again.
Another dream.
The morning passed in fragments. I barely remember the walk to work. My eyes refused to open fully, my head felt heavy, as if sleep was clinging to me by force.
I live alone.
No one sits beside me.
I'm an orphan.
I work as a game developer now. Before that, I was a detective—until the dreams tore that life apart. I resigned before I lost myself completely.
The street blurred in front of my eyes.
Light.
Noise.
A horn—too close.
Then—
When I opened my eyes again, the air was cold and stale.
Not clean cold, but damp, iron-dusted cold that sank into my bones.
Iron bars.
Stone walls.
A prison.
For a moment, I thought it was another dream. The silence felt… familiar.
Then the guard arrived.
"Hey," he said, looking at me like I was already dead. "Prisoner. You've been sentenced to death."
What?
"What do you mean… death?" My voice cracked. "I don't even know where I am. I don't know what I did."
The words echoed uselessly in the cell.
"The first thing that happens to me here," I whispered, "is execution?"
The guard didn't answer. He didn't even care.
And for the first time, I wondered if waking up was really safer than dreaming.