He went to sleep expecting nothing.
No prayers. No wishes. No dramatic thoughts about tomorrow. Just the quiet hope that rest would silence the noise in his head—the kind of noise that had no sound, only weight.
The room was dark, save for the thin blade of moonlight slipping through the curtain. It cut across the floor and climbed the wall like it was searching for something. He lay on his back, eyes open, watching it move as time slowly lost its meaning.
Sleep came without warning.
No falling sensation. No drifting. One moment he was there—breathing, thinking, existing—and the next, there was nothing.
Then—
He woke up.
His eyes opened to a sky he didn't recognize.
It wasn't blue. Not really. It carried a pale silver hue, as if dawn had been frozen mid-breath. Clouds stretched unnaturally far, long and thin like brushstrokes across glass. They didn't move. They simply were.
He sat up too quickly.
The ground beneath him was warm, smooth, almost soft—like stone that remembered being sand. He pressed his fingers into it, expecting resistance. It yielded slightly, then returned to its shape.
"That's… not right."
His voice echoed.
Not loudly. Not far. Just enough to return to his ears a second later, altered—deeper, heavier, as though the world had repeated his words after thinking about them.
His heart began to race.
This is a dream.
That thought arrived fully formed, immediate, comforting. He stood up, dusted off his clothes—and froze.
They weren't his clothes.
The familiar worn shirt, the old trousers, the faint smell of detergent and dust—gone. In their place was a fitted dark coat, light but warm, its fabric shimmering faintly when he moved. His boots were unfamiliar, yet they fit perfectly, like they had been broken in by someone else with his feet.
He looked at his hands.
Same scars. Same skin tone. Same fingers.
But they felt… clearer.
Sharper.
Like his nerves had been cleaned.
"No," he whispered. "I'm dreaming."
He closed his eyes tightly and did what he'd done countless times before—counted backwards, slowed his breathing, waited for the snap-back to reality.
Five.
Four.
Three.
Two—
A sound interrupted him.
Footsteps.
He opened his eyes.
In the distance, a figure approached across the silver ground. Then another. And another. People. Walking naturally, talking, laughing softly like this place was ordinary.
A city rose behind them.
Tall structures of glass and stone curved toward the sky, not aggressively, but gently—like they were grown, not built. Lights glowed within them, pulsing slowly, as if the city itself had a heartbeat.
A woman noticed him.
She stopped, frowned slightly, then smiled.
"You're finally awake," she said.
The words hit him like cold water.
"Awake?" he repeated.
She tilted her head. "First arrival disorientation. Don't worry. It passes."
His mouth went dry. "Where am I?"
She gestured around them, casual. "Here."
"That's not an answer."
She laughed softly. "It never feels like one at first."
He took a step back. "I went to sleep. In my room. In my world."
Her smile faltered—just a little.
"Oh," she said. "So you remember that much."
A sharp chill ran through him.
"Remember what?" he asked.
She looked at him with something close to pity.
"Your beginning."
The ground beneath his feet pulsed—once.
Not a vibration. A response.
Far above, the silver sky cracked—not with lightning, but with light. For a split second, images flashed across it: a bed, a dark room, a body lying still.
His body.
He staggered.
"What did you do to me?" he demanded.
The woman stepped closer, lowering her voice.
"We didn't do anything," she said gently. "You just… didn't wake up."
The world seemed to lean inward.
His heartbeat thundered in his ears. "That's impossible."
She met his eyes.
"Everyone says that," she replied.
And somewhere—far beyond the silver sky—a machine beeped once… then stopped.