The dreams didn't stop at night-they followed me into daylight. Shadows in the street seemed to mimic my thoughts, flickering in corners of my vision I didn't know existed. Every reflective surface became a mirror for something I didn't trust: myself.
Vivienne said I was imagining it. That I was letting my mind spin out of control. But how could she understand? She had never been me.
I remembered fragments of childhood-a warmth I hadn't touched in years, a hand steadying mine when the world felt too big. Julian. That name, half-remembered, half-invented, was a lifeline, a whisper I clung to like air.
And yet, the dreams were cruel.
They placed him near me, always near, but never fully reachable. They threaded through the present, twisting familiar faces into something unfamiliar. I began to see connections that didn't exist, meaning in gestures that weren't meant.
I tried to speak to Vivienne, to tell her what I felt-but the words tasted wrong, hollow in my mouth.
"You're fine," she said, her voice calm, almost rehearsed. "You just need rest."
Rest. A luxury I could not afford. Not with the certainty clinging to me like frost.
I pressed my hand to my stomach, searching for something tangible. Something that could prove me right. But there was only emptiness.
And still, I believed.
The fantasy was more than desire. It was survival. And I was willing to fight anyone who tried to take it from me-not realizing that, sometimes, survival is the most dangerous illusion of all.