The Waking Dream
He was in the courtyard again.
No—a courtyard. It wore a familiar shape but whispered in other tongues. The moss had grown backward. The moon hung lower than it should, humming a tune he couldn’t name.
He turned in place, bare feet brushing stone that hadn’t been built—only remembered. His breath misted, though the air refused to name its season. And the stars—where were the stars?
“If reality is just a shared model…”
His voice came softly, uncertain, almost ashamed to disturb the air.
“…who am I sharing this reality with?”
No one answered.
But something laughed.
Not aloud. Not externally. It rose from within him but did not belong to him. It was a laugh echoed from the wrong side of a mirror.
Warm. Patient. Knowing.
“It’s not your dream, Dæmon,” said the voice. “It’s ours.”
He turned—too fast—and the world shifted with him. The courtyard rippled like heat over water, then stilled.
“Who are you?” he asked, scanning the shadows.
A pause. The ivy leaned forward as if to listen.
“You know my name?”
“Of course, Dæmon,” the voice answered gently.
“I named you.”
His breath caught.
The wind paused.
Time pooled around his ankles.
“No,” he said. “No, I chose it.”
“You think you did.”
The words landed like puzzle pieces from the wrong box—misfit and perfect all at once.
“Why now?” he asked, his voice nearly swallowed by the shifting silence. “Why are you showing yourself now?”
“Because you're almost ready.”
“Ready for what?”
He staggered a step back, blinking as if he'd just stepped out of someone else's dream. The courtyard held its breath. The ivy on the far wall stirred.
And shimmered.
Then it parted.
And behind it, woven not just into the stone but with it, the ivy and wood had grown themselves into an eight-pointed star—vast, intricate, and impossibly delicate. Its limbs spiraled outward in curves too elegant to be carved, too perfect to be accidental. The wood was silvered with age, the ivy threaded with veins of crimson and gold. The star pulsed faintly, like a wound that had learned to sing.
“To remember,” the voice whispered.
He stepped forward.
The star pulsed—once, gently. A heartbeat. He reached out—not because he chose to, but because he already had, a dozen dreams ago. This one was only catching up.
His fingers touched stone. The wall shimmered.
And then—
From behind the wall, beyond the dream, beneath the skin of story—
a voice rose.
His voice. But older. Calmer. Certain.
“I’m sorry I left you alone for so long.”
“Who are you?” Dæmon whispered.
A silence answered.
Not empty. Not cold. Just… ancient.
Then, like a name echoing down a long-forgotten hallway:
“I am The One Who Remembers.”
