The dream doesn't end when I wake up.
That's how I know something is wrong.
I lie still, staring at the ceiling, waiting for the familiar fog to lift. The heaviness, the sense of being half-elsewhere—that part isn't new. I've learned to live with it. Learned how to pretend it's normal.
But this is different.
The room feels wrong.
Not broken. Not distorted. Everything is where it should be, yet none of it feels human. Like my room was remembered instead of built. The walls are too attentive. The air too quiet. Every object looks correct and feels false, as if reality is wearing a convincing disguise.
I'm still asleep, I tell myself.
The thought should calm me. It doesn't. It never does.
The ceiling above me breathes—slow and uneven, like it's afraid to move too loudly. Shadows cling where light should be, stretching and recoiling as if touched by thought instead of physics.
My chest tightens.
The room responds.
The air grows heavier with each shallow breath I take, pressing down on me like a held hand. Panic flickers, sharp and sudden, and the walls bend inward just slightly, bowing as if they're listening.
I sit up.
The mirror across the room is fogged over from the inside.
A handprint presses against the glass.
It isn't mine.
My heart slams against my ribs. The pressure in the room spikes, the walls drawing closer, the ceiling dipping like it might collapse if I breathe too hard. The handprint slides down the mirror, leaving behind a smear that pulses faintly.
It's warm.
Wrong.
And somehow—comforting.
This isn't real. This isn't real. I'm still dreaming.
The words bring no anchor. They slide off me, useless.
I swing my legs off the bed. My bare feet touch the floor.
The handprint twitches.
"Is this how you feel all the time?"
I freeze.
The voice isn't accusing. It isn't cruel.
It's confused.
The mirror cracks.
Light spills out—not bright, but deep, like the inside of a closed eye. The glass fractures outward, silent, peeling away as something steps through.
It's unfinished.
It wears my face wrong, like someone tried to recreate me from memory and filled in the missing pieces with guesswork. The eyes linger too long. The mouth doesn't quite understand how to rest.
My breath stutters.
"I didn't mean to," I whisper.
The thing tilts its head, studying me with unsettling care.
"Then why did you dream me?"
The floor creaks beneath my feet. The pressure spikes again, sharp enough to make my vision blur. A piercing ring fills my ears, drowning out thought, freezing my limbs in place. I try to move—nothing responds.
Sleep paralysis.
The thing watches as I struggle, not advancing, not retreating. Then, slowly, it begins to sink—not into the floor, not into the walls, but through them, dissolving like a thought I almost remember.
The pressure snaps away.
I gasp, collapsing forward as the room shudders back into place. The ceiling stills. The walls straighten. The mirror is whole again—except for a faint, hairline crack near the bottom edge.
Something lingers in the air.
Cold. Heavy. Unfinished.
Then I hear it.
A scream.
Distant, muffled by walls and space, but unmistakably real.
My phone vibrates on the nightstand.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Missed calls. Unknown numbers. A message notification flickers onto the screen.
Did you come into my dream?
My stomach drops.
Another scream echoes—closer this time.
I sit there, shaking, staring at the cracked mirror, at my own reflection staring back a fraction of a second too late.
I sit there, shaking, staring at the cracked mirror, at my own reflection staring back a fraction of a second too late.
Because this dream was never meant to belong to just one person.