I don’t remember when sleep became the best part of my day, only that at some point it quietly replaced everything else. School feels like something I just move through now. Voices blending together, people laughing in groups I’m never part of, teachers calling my name just to check I’m still there. I sit, I listen, I leave. No one really notices and after a while, I stopped expecting them to. By the time I get home, I’m already tired in a way that sleep seems like the only cure for, like closing my eyes is the one thing I can look forward to without disappointment. And every time I do, I end up in the same place.

It’s always waiting for me unchanged and quiet, stretching out beneath a pale endless sky. The ruins feel ancient, like they’ve been standing long before I ever found them, and there’s something strangely comforting about how nothing here ever shifts or disappears. It doesn’t ask anything from me nor does it doesn’t expect me to be different.

I can just exist.

The first time I saw him I thought he was part of it, just another detail my mind had created. He stood near the edge of everything, where the ground simply stopped, like the rest of the world had been cut away. But he didn’t blur when I looked at him, didn’t fade or change like dreams are supposed to. He just… stayed. Watching me in a way that made it impossible to pretend he wasn’t real in some way that mattered.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” he said the second night I found him again, like he’d been expecting me to return. I frowned, my eyes sweeping around the dilapidated remains. “I could say the same thing to you.”

For a moment he didn’t answer and something about that silence felt heavier than it should have. “I don’t leave,” he said eventually, there was an edge in his voice that made my chest constrict, and I couldn’t explain it.

After that, I started noticing things I hadn’t before. I could walk wherever I wanted, wander as far as I liked, but he never moved beyond that same invisible line near the edge. It was like the world allowed me to come and go, but kept him in place, as if he belonged to it in a way I didn’t. Every morning, I’d wake up back in my room, the dream slipping away around the edges, but he would still be there, waiting.

I tell myself it’s just a dream, that none of it is real, but it doesn’t feel like one anymore. Not when I catch myself thinking about him during the day, when I’m supposed to be listening to something that doesn’t matter, or when I find myself wishing the hours would pass faster just so I can go back. It’s the only place where I don’t feel invisible, where someone actually looks at me like I exist, like I matter enough to notice.

And lately, it’s been getting harder to wake up, not in a way I can explain but just a feeling that something is holding on a little tighter each time I try to leave. Like the place isn’t just somewhere I visit anymore, instead somewhere that’s starting to recognize me, to expect me.

Last night, just before everything faded, I thought I heard him say something faint. “Don’t stay too long.”

I don’t know why, but that’s the one thing I can’t stop thinking about.

Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months, of the same dream that wouldn't go away. I had developed my own fantasy, my own world. The man warned me but each night felt more magical then the next. I couldn't leave. It was impossible. Why leave this amazing world all at my own hands? It was perfect. That was until it happened. Creation is a beautiful thing till it turns on you. Frolicking in wonder, playing with dandelions till the seeds blow away and there's nothing left but a baren flower in the palm of your hand. That was my world. My utopia. In the palm of my hands, beautiful. Then it was destroyed. By a dark matter, unable to escape by thoughts words or action. Trapped. I tried everything, shouting, running, screaming at the top of my lungs till they hurt. He was right I shouldn't have stayed here. I should have left while I could.