Page 17 of In Somnis

It’s been almost a hundred days since my dreams turned on me. A hundred days since Miller called to tell me about that major publishing deal he’d arranged for me, and since the night I got weak and actually wanted to share the damn accomplishment with my ex-best friend. The night I swallowed my pride only to step foot into his literal nightmare before being pushed into my own, the door slammed in my face.

Thanks again for that, buddy.

I close my eyes again, the lollipop still tucked against my molars and face the truth I’ve spent months refusing to look at straight on.

If lucid dreaming doesn’t start working again for me soon, I’m fucked.

Miller seems to think I have a masterpiece hidden somewhere up my ass, but the simple fact is, no lucid dreaming means no sketching monsters, no sculpting nightmares. No nightmares mean no material, and no material? Well. Contract breach, career death, public shame, and all that fun shit.

I pull the blanket higher, drag in a slow breath, and will myself to slip back into sleep. I don’t even try to go in lucid. I just want enough unconsciousness to stop thinking, but the second I start drifting, I drift straight back to her.

Her trembling breath, the spotlights, and the car. I try to shove the memory out of my head the same way I tried to shove her out of my dream, but surprise, it doesn’t work. It’s like her fear and her wide eyes are stitched into the lining of my thoughts.

My brain hasn’t fixated on a stranger this hard since… well, ever. But to be fair, I’ve also never shared a dream with a total stranger before. Anyone, really. Only with—nope. Not peeling open that can of psychological worms at five in the morning. I’ve had enough existential bullshit for one night.

I feel nothing.

Think nothing.

I am nothing…

“Why the hell would that guy call her that?” I mutter around the lollipop, remembering more of the dream. Cherub. Seriously? Cherub.

Who the actual fuck calls a grown woman a baby-angel-cupid-valentine-reject nickname? What’s next, my little Holy Infant?

I chuckle at my own joke.

After a few more minutes of fighting a losing battle, I give up entirely. I spit out a swear, reach for the nightstand, and grab the paperback sitting on top of the stack.

It’s some obscure horror collection I’ve been rereading, and I flip it open one-handed, lollipop shifting in my mouth as I settle back against the pillows. If I can’t sleep, I’ll read until the words blur or the sun comes up.

Forcing my eyes across the page, I pretend to care about the story, pretending the only reason I’m still awake is my usual cocktail of insomnia and stress. Except every time the silence shifts, even a little, my head snaps toward the wall, anticipating proof that she’s really there, and that she’s really crying a few feet away instead of in a dreamscape I shouldn’t have been able to enter at all.

CHAPTER FOUR

Paul

The dream is always the same.

The road is wet, and rain slicks the asphalt into a black mirror, headlights smearing into long white scars that stretch too far ahead of me. The wipers move in a steady rhythm of left, right, left, right in perfect time.

They are predictable and controlled.

I like that part.

My hands are at ten and two, and the pressure of the steering wheel is familiar. I’m breathing evenly, in through my nose, out through my mouth. I am calm.

I am always calm in the beginning.

Because I know what this is. I know I’m dreaming.

There’s no confusion, no slow realization. I don’t question the road, the rain, or the car. I recognize the pattern the second I’m in it. That awareness always clicks in immediately.

This is the dream, the one I am cursed to endure night after night.

I register every detail with clinical clarity, cataloging sensations like I’ve practiced for years. The smell of wet asphalt. The hum of the engine. The exact tempo of the wipers.

And still, I can’t change a thing.