Alex had always been a boy of equations and propulsion charts, the kind who solved physics problems for fun and corrected sci-fi films under his breath. At thirty-two, he ran a company that designed and engineered parts for aerospace systems; fuel-efficient nozzles, advanced thermal shields, gyroscopic stabilizers. Real rocket-science stuff. And he was annoyingly good at it. His world was made of precision and possibility, of launch windows and escape velocities. But tonight? Tonight, he just wanted the silence to swallow him whole.
He had landed in the city that morning, straight off a red-eye flight from Berlin where he’d spent three days locked in negotiation with a defense tech firm. His calendar had been an obstacle course of investor briefings and engineering updates, ending with a final roundtable where he had to explain plasma propulsion to a man who thought Mach 2 was a car model. By the time he got home, even gravity felt like a suggestion.
Alex’s apartment was...well, very Alex. A soft blend of Japandi minimalism with warm Californian undertones—a balance of restraint and sunshine. White oak accents, stone-gray walls, curves in the furniture that whispered ease but didn’t scream for attention. Every piece in the space had purpose. Some corners held chaos: scattered notebooks, an open drone prototype, an unwashed coffee mug that said I Build Stuff You Can’t Pronounce. But it was his chaos. And in the middle of that storm, he could always find exactly what he needed.
He dropped his keys in the concrete dish by the door, kicked off his shoes, and padded toward the shower like a man on autopilot. The hot water hit his shoulders with the kind of relief you usually get from warm bread or sincere compliments. He stood there for longer than necessary, letting steam unclench the week from his bones.
Twenty minutes and one aggressively folded towel later, Alex shuffled into the living room in a sweatshirt that had seen better centuries and poured himself a gin and tonic. Ice clinked softly. The lights were low. the television was running Sister Boniface Mysteries, the crime-solving nun with a lab coat in one hand and a prayer in the other, like Agatha Christie met The Sound of Music and decided to moonlight as a forensic detective. And honestly, it made him somewhat feel like he saw a bit of himself.
He sank into the couch, exhaled, and took a slow sip. The coolness spread across his chest like a reminder: you made it through the day. Maybe even the week. That was enough. He didn’t remember when he started dozing off. Just that one second the screen was flickering gently, and the next, he was somewhere else.
**
The dream doesn't begin abruptly. It eases in, like golden hour light spilling through the cracks of a room you've never seen but somehow recognize. The forest around the house isn’t ominous or eerie. It’s alive in that gentle, conspiratorial way nature has when it knows it’s being watched. Trees swayed like they had stories to tell but were polite enough to whisper. Birdsong played softly, not like a soundtrack but like it was coming from inside Alex’s own chest, and somewhere beyond the thick greenery, a waterfall roared, not menacingly, but like a heartbeat louder than the world.
The house stood in the middle of this wild quiet, a curious blend of enchantment and engineering, like something a forest spirit might design if they had studied architecture and poetry in equal measure. Its walls were made of deep, honeyed wood and old stone wrapped in vines with memories. Glass windows stretched high like cathedral frames, letting the light pour in without permission. The door was crooked in that charming way that hinted at a hundred years of secrets, and the porch had mismatched chairs no one had bothered to fix because they were perfect that way.
Inside, everything breathed. Dust motes danced in shafts of sunlight like they were rehearsing for a ballet. Books leaned against each other like tired companions. The air smelled of lemon balm, coffee grounds, and something sweeter, something floral and a little magical, like a memory that hasn’t happened yet. And in that center of it all sat her.
Dany.
She was curled up in the sun-drenched corner of the room, surrounded by warmth, light, and the soft hum of everything he had ever tried to suppress. She looked different, yet, entirely the same. Less polished than she’d be in real life, maybe, but more vivid than any memory he had. She wore a sweater two sizes too big and socks that didn’t match, like the universe had finally let her relax. And she was laughing, like, really laughing, eyes half-shut, head tilted back like the sunlight was kissing her cheek just right.
And in her hands, held so carefully like it was an offering, was a flower.
It was deep violet, almost black, but not quite, with velvety petals that shimmered with golden flecks that moved, danced, responded to the light. It looked impossible, like something plucked from a fairytale garden, and yet somehow, it felt familiar. Like a promise they’d once whispered into the wind and forgotten to retrieve.
She held it out to him with that mischievous grin, the one that made him feel both called out and called home.
“We’ve waited so long for this to bloom,” Dany said softly, like the flower could hear her.
Alex reached for it with a reverence he didn’t recognize in himself. The flower pulsed once in his hand like it had a heartbeat of its own. His fingers trembled around the stem. Not from fear, but from knowing. This meant something. This was something.
“Do you remember?” she asked. “That day… when the sky caught fire?”
And he did.
In the dream’s hazy logic, “that day” unfolded behind his eyes. A shoreline, waves angry and loud. A sky splashed with orange and purple like the gods had spilled paint. A storm that had chased them, wild and laughing and soaked. Dany's hair had been a mess. His shoes had been lost somewhere in the tide. And yet, they had clung to something. Not to each other, not yet, but to this flower. Back then, it had been a bud. Closed, clenched, refusing to bloom. They’d buried it under a patch of sand as a joke. A secret pact. “If it ever grows,” she had said, “we’ll know we made it.”
Now, in the quiet of the house in the forest, the flower had bloomed.
And Dany was here.
“Do you miss home?” she asked, not sadly, just curiously, like she was holding his answer up to the light.
He didn’t even hesitate.
“You’re my home.”
And it felt true. Real. Absolute. Like the kind of answer he wouldn’t say out loud when awake because he was too used to editing himself. But here, in this place, with her? It poured out of him as naturally as breath.
She laughed again, and this time, it hit him square in the chest. That laugh, it didn’t sound like a dream. It sounded like memory. Like future. Like something worth chasing.
She leaned closer, tucking the flower behind his ear with a sly smirk, the gold glitter brushing across his cheek like soft electricity.
“We waited,” she whispered, her voice close to his temple, “for so long.”
And then gently so, kissed him. A fleeting moment that felt like forever.
He closed his eyes. Breathed in. Every part of the moment felt complete, whole, like his atoms had lined up in perfect formation for the first time in years.
**
And then, somewhere in the waking world, reality called. A clink. A shift. The TV got loud. Something moved in his hand.
He blinked. Couch. Apartment. Television. A gin and tonic dangerously close to spilling.
Something loud on the TV jolted Alex just enough to make him catch the gin glass before it tipped. He blinked, slow and heavy, heart still somewhere in that forest. He stood, stretched, and made his way to the bedroom, scratching his head as if trying to shake the dream loose or hold onto it tighter, he wasn’t quite sure.
He straightened, placing the glass down carefully. The city lights blinked outside, muted and unaware.
But before he stood up, before he disappeared into the quiet of his perfectly crafted apartment, he paused.
From somewhere in the back of his mind, he heard her voice again, playful, soft, unmistakable.
Right before collapsing onto the bed, he swore he heard it. A laugh—Dany's—faint and teasing, like it came from just behind the curtain of the night.
“I've been waiting for you, all this while.” he whispered.
Alex smiled into the dark. “Goodnight,” he murmured, not to the apartment or the city, but to her. To that space in the dream. To whatever version of him still sat beside her, holding a flower they’d saved from a sky on fire.
Run along, now. See you when I see you, he swore he could hear.
Then it all went dark.
Love,
S
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