?


    I was awake.


    Blinking, breathing. Pretty much like what any other living, waking being does on the daily.


    Except none of this felt like that. I don''t even know what this was. All I knew was that I was awake.


    Was I awake?


    Sleeping - I remembered sleeping. I remembered mbering up the usual steps to my bedroom. I remembered dinner, remembered Adalia requesting something sweet for breakfast tomorrow, I remembered also noting to refill our dwindling cereal stock in the pantry.


    Tomorrow… tomorrow was Saturday, I think? A day off from work, the fourth day of the new year, if my thinking was right - I really don''t know. For some reason, nothing here felt or even looked right.


    Like the bed I was lying on, the ceiling my eyes were glued to… if reality could be believed, then none of them were mine.


    Or at the very least, they weren''t anymore.


    I recognized the little aged imperfections across the ceiling tiles, the whispered squeaks of the bed frame that sounded like a chipmunk getting juiced in a hydraulic press whenever I shifted my weight. Like I just did, sitting right up, realization ring louder than any rm.


    Someway, somehow, I woke up in my old bedroom back home - the window to the side opening up to the early-morning hue and view of vast ins and open skies.


    Except even that wasn''t right.


    Sure, the floorboards creaked the same way with every step I took trying to walk off my disorientation, and yeah, the same dirt-paved driveway stared back up at me peering down from the windowsill. Everything and everywhere I looked, not an inch, not a single thing out of ce.


    So why didn''t it feel like it?


    Even my own body, my own thoughts, my very being… it sprung to mind that maybe it wasn''t the world that felt out of ce… maybe it was me.


    But how can that be?


    "Am I dreaming?"


    I heard myself speak, every syble out of my lips feeling as if it belonged to someone else instead. Like I was repeating something someone had said instead of speaking it myself.


    Yeah, that pretty much does it. I''m dreaming, alright.


    Lucid dreaming was a topic I''d periodically stumble upon on and off. I knew the basics, understood the concept. Never actually experienced one firsthand, however… unless we''re counting my asional dives into other people''s dreams and memories as repertoire enough.


    But was this even that? Out of nowhere just a sudden, inexplicable bout of sentience in dreand? In my line of life? Fortunately, or maybe, unfortunately, past experiences made me too much of a doubter to simply take this all in stride.


    Something was definitely amiss here.


    There was no point idling around. I woke up in my bedroom, found myself stranded in my old home… following the standard guidelines of my life so far… what else was there to do but explore it?


    Thending of the second floor sprung out of me from the doorway with a st of nostalgia. Its narrow, funnel-likeyout, closed doors of the other bedrooms, and the stairway to the side offering just the slightest glimpse of the downstairs.


    I know it hasn''t been long since thest time I visited, nheless, can''t help miss what you miss, I guess.


    Went to Sammy''s room first at a whim, entering slowly with a peek, and once more, it was like a perfect photocopy of what I remembered of it on the top of my head. The pastel pink of her walls, interspersed with posters of bands and movie stars, dusty shelves propping up ribbons, awards, and a bunch of family pictures of when we were younger.


    A little further ahead, and the empty space on her bed gave me a rather rude awakening. Seemed really obvious in hindsight, but it just urred to me that there was likely no one else in the house but me.


    I turned around, swung open the other door close by and it was pretty much the same story - my parents'' bedroomy just as bare and silent. It felt like being in a mall after hours, or a gas station in an empty stretch of road in the middle of the night.


    Some ces just aren''t meant to be empty.


    Yet, strangely enough, I didn''t see any problem with it. Despite being acutely aware of how eerie this all was, and how wrong it all felt, I felt as calm as I did waking up to all of this.


    Something about the wrongness just felt… right, assuring… if that made any sense.


    As I slowly mbered down the steps of the stairs, just for the hell of it, I tried calling out, "Sammy? Mom? Dad, you there? Someone gonna exin what''s happening here?"


    The more I spoke, the more it felt like I was actually speaking out of sync… my words resounding a full second after I said them. Weird, wrong, I know, but I simply couldn''t muster up the effort to be disturbed.


    Truth be told, I didn''t expect anything from yelling into nothing. Regardless, out of a habit long dormant, I still had an ear out toward the kitchen… any moment expecting to hear the sizzle of the stove like I always do.


    Mom loved to race the morning sun seeing who''d be the first to rise for the day. At times just showing up at ces and situations when you least expect. If nothing else, she was the one person I''d expected to manifest from out of the blue.


    Speak of the devil, as they say…


    Upon reaching the bottom of the stairs, it happened. I felt something stir, something heavy floating in the air… and I heard a click, and instantly the warmth of sunlight began flooding in from the front door, parting wide open.


    If the lucid dreaming theory was still to be believed, if I was actually in control of everything here, then I don''t think that door would have been doing that.


    Normally, probably, I would know better than to deliberately walk through inexplicably opened doors. Here though, it was gradually bing more and more clear to me that I was being strung along by this strange sense of calm over me.


    Every step I took was one of unwillingpliance, wanting but without wanting. And the closer I reached, the stronger that feeling of serenity became, a bliss so potent, addicting, and I felt my body yearn for even more.


    Like a zombie, I eventually shambled out onto the porch.


    I heard and felt the delicate caress of early spring softly blowing past my ears, and I blinked, just blinked, and the next thing I knew, all over in a flood, a storm, an embrace overpowering all senses - peace, just peace.


    A peace beyond words, beyond anything… everything.


    I don''t remember opening my eyes. Apparently, I did. I could feel the sun in my retinas, see leaves dispersing with the breeze… and… and also… also…


    My lips moved, and I heard my voice ringing aloud a full eternityter.


    "Ash?"


    She was right in front of me… inches away underneath the porch''s shade… there was no mistaking her… those sparkling emerald eyes… the way her long snowy locks flowed… a loving smile that eclipsed even the sun… it was her, she… wait, no…


    "Wrong," Ash said, her smile fading, all of her fading, changing.


    Wrong, right.


    I was wrong.


    It wasn''t Ash. Now that I had a closer look, her hair was shorter, darker… even her voice was different… firm, imposing, yet still so endearing regardless.


    "Irene, is that…?"


    "No, still wrong," She interrupted, giggling mirthfully, before tossing back a stream of blonde hair. "You''re wee to try again."


    But before I could answer, I caught a glint in her smile, the pointed tip of a fang ever so slightly protruding out from her thin lips. Her eyes in a swirl of misty gray.


    I never felt so lost, so confused… and why the hell was I still so calm, so at peace?


    "Ah, it''s alright. It doesn''t matter how I look to you," Amanda said brightly, her sharp ws reaching for my hand, wearing another smile as soft and warm as the green in her gaze. "You''ll only see who you wish to see."


    And that''s when it clicked. Bursting forth from a thick miasma of tranquility, I could finally think, finally realized, what I should have long ago. A world dreamlike and surreal, so overwhelmingly peaceful and idyllic. There was only one exnation.


    Only one being.


    "Enstar?" I asked, a secondter, hearing my confusion finally surface.


    Irene smiled again.


    "Took you long enough," She said, weaving her fingers between mine and sping tightly. "After all this time. It''s nice to meet you finally."


    All of a sudden, I felt her pull, and before I could resist, before I could even think to resist, she had her arms enveloped around me, and that too, felt only right.


    Whatever questions I had, what reactions I felt, they left me, and I held onto her too, wanting even more of it… of her sweetness… of her peace, and I had absolutely no desire of ever letting go.


    At that moment, I never wanted to leave her embrace.


    As wrong as I knew it.


    "Still so young… still so full of life… and still so much more to give…" she whispered. "I know what you desire, but not just yet, not right now… but do not fret, alright?"


    She broke away from me, stepping back and pulling away when I couldn''t, when I still didn''t want to let go. And in front of me, faintly, yet oh so clearly, beamed the loving smile of a mother.


    In her image.


    In her voice.


    "We will be reunited again soon enough."