The morning was a cold betrayal of normalcy.
Engines hummed. Birds argued in the trees. Somewhere, a dog barked with irritating persistence.. The world moved as though nothing had broken.
Alex lay flat on his back, unmoving. His hand rested on his forehead, fingers cold against skin that felt too warm. Pale sunlight sliced through the blinds, painting his ceiling and walls. It looked ordinary, just like every other morning.
His dark eyes were open but unfocused. He could still feel it. The weight of exhaustion that had lasted days, the ache in his lungs, the burn in his muscles.
He dragged his hand down his thigh and squeezed hard. Nothing happened. No pain, no resistance. Slowly he pulled out his hand and watched as his fingers trembled.
Clenching his hand into a fist, Alex exhaled deeply. every breathing felt forced.
After a while Alex slowly stepped out of his sheets and sat on the bed side. The floor was cool beneath his feet, and for a moment his gaze remained fixed on it.
Then, slowly he tilted his head and paused. Faintly caught in the screen of his monitor across the room was his reflection. For a second, he didn’t recognize the stranger in the glass. His face looked untouched and well rested. His eyes however did not.
He stood, the movement felt delayed, like his body was responding to commands a second late. He steadied himself, nearly losing balance.
Then, slowly he walked to the window and stared at his reflection.
Alex didn’t blink.
His black wavy hair fell across his face, giving him a distant, almost ghostlike look. His dark gaze was fixed at the world below, however he wasn't seeing any of it. He was seeing them.
Roric’s charisma. Iris, her smile. The Archives. The… pain. Gosh, the pain, the kind that lived in memory long after the body forgot.
His hand drifted down again and grabbed his leg. Still no pain. His body didn't have a scratch, not a single bruise. He checked anyway, running fingers over his skin like he expected wounds to appear.
Nothing.
It had all been a dream.
‘Just a dream… ’
He laughed once, short, dry and hollow. Because that's what anyone would tell him. That's what he would have told himself a week ago.
It was just a dream, Alex. None of it was real.
But everything he'd felt during that journey to the Archives, the cold air of Bastion, its people, the fear and the exhaustion, the moments he was sure he would die. It all pressed against him like a weight on his chest. Too real. Extraordinarily real.
He pressed his right palm against his eyes until sparks of color bloomed in the dark. His other hand slowly, almost experimentally, gripped his thigh again. Harder this time. Nothing. No tremor in abused muscles. His fingers tightened further. Still nothing.
Suddenly the air in the room felt too thin.
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“It was… a dream.” He whispered, the words didn’t quite settle. His chest rose once, stalled and then continued.
He turned his head toward the wall. The motion made the room tilt slightly, not visibly but internally, like his balance had recalibrated half a degree too far. He closed his eyes until it passed.
When he opened them again, his room was still there. Unchanged and unbothered by his disorientation. His gaze shifted toward the alarm clock.
[06:12]
He stared at it. The numbers did not change. He waited. Still 06:12.
Alex mind tried to measure what that meant. The journey from Bastion to the Archives, days of walking and near death moments. The storm. The light…
“Iris…” Alex’s throat tightened unexpectedly. He swallowed hard and looked away.
One night.
He grabbed his phone that lay on the desk.
[06:27 - Thursday]
Fifteen minutes had passed. Fifteen minutes.
Alex swallowed hard, he lowered himself onto the edge of the bed before his legs could decide otherwise.
‘One night.’ He thought, heart beating harder now, not fast, just… heavy.
Then, a thought rose, slow and poisonous. ‘How do you know you… woke up?’
His breathing shallowed. Slowly he lifted his gaze and stared at the air in front of him. He focused and spoke a word, his voice trembling faintly.
“Morpheus…”
He waited for a shimmer, a cold voice or even a fracture in the air.
Nothing happened.
Only the low hum of engines outside.
The silence that followed consumed even the outside world. The sound that broke it was the buzz of his phone, a sound that made him flinch. It took him a second to remember what that vibration meant.
Looking down, the screen blinked as a notification popped up.
[Marcus: Dude I had a crazy night. Tell you later, with Eli right now]
Alex stared at the message.
‘Crazy night.’ Alex almost laughed again. Almost.
His thumb hovered over the screen but did not type. He placed the phone beside him carefully, as if sudden movements might disturb something fragile.
His chest felt wrong, he felt as if a hole was in place of where his heart should have been. He pressed a fist lightly against his sternum. There was warmth, motion even. Yet, he felt hollow, like a room after furniture had been removed. His eyes burned, images of the dream flooded his mind. Nothing fell.
“Get a hold on yourself Alex” he muttered.
The words sounded like someone else had spoken. He didn’t give it much thought, instead Alex slowly stood and walked to the wardrobe.
There, he pulled on black joggers without checking them. The fabric hung loose, comfortable and impersonal. A grey hoodie followed, dragging the hood over his head, it shadowed his face. He then slid into a pair on black sneakers.
Reaching for the door handle Alex paused, slowly he glanced behind him. The once comforting room, the place he had chosen a million times over anywhere else, suddenly felt… Alien.
His messy bed. His luggage by the wardrobe. Books stacked beneath the shelf. The alarm clock blinking, 07:21. And his computer, silent and waiting.
Everything was the same. Yet something felt off, like something had shifted half an inch out of place.
Standing there, Alex listened. For a long while he waited for something to prove this was real.
He swallowed hard.
Nothing did.
