The man sleeps.

It is not a sudden collapse into unconsciousness, but the slow descent, as though he is walking along a dingy path lit by lanterns that dim with every step. He feels the shift more than he sees it. The way the weight of his body loosens, the way sound grows muffled, the way the images before him suddenly feel brighter. And then he is standing in a place that should not exist, though he recognizes it immediately.

The ceiling is a cathedral of iron and glass, arched so high it seems to disappear into the shadows. Trains stand silent on their tracks, metal gleaming black and silver, though no passengers board them. The air smells faintly of smoke and freshly polished metal. A great clock hangs suspended in the air, its hands circling backward, forward, pausing, then starting again. In the distance, there are doors. Too many doors. They line the horizon in every direction, each one different, some of wood, some of iron, some draped in velvet, some small enough for a child, some towering and immense. He never opens them. He never tries. That’s not why he is here.

He is not alone.

A figure waits, seated on a bench, their attention firmly directed towards the book they were reading. The book had no visible writing, was as nondescript as the man himself. The stranger’s posture is calm, almost Lazy, as though his train was not due to arrive for a long time.

“You are late,” the stranger says.

The man hesitates, a slow smile creeping upon his lips; it’s always the same few words of greeting. Though he knows there is no real time here, the words fall between them with the weight of familiarity. “I suppose I am,” he replies.

The stranger does not rise. Their face is partly obscured, blurred in a way that is neither natural but also not disquieting. It is a face the man knew like the back of his hand, and yet will be forgotten once the stranger leaves. Like a memory one tries to recall after years, familiar in outline but slippery in detail. Sometimes the hair seems dark, other times pale, sometimes the voice is low, sometimes light. The man does not question this. He never has.

He sits beside the stranger. The bench is cold beneath him. Around them, the tiled floor shifts imperceptibly, the spirals widening, pulling outward as though making space for their conversation.

“How was your day?” the stranger asks.

The question is ordinary, absurdly so, given the vast unreality around them. And yet the man answers. He always answers.

“It was… nothing special. I worked. I ate. I walked home and tried not to think too much.”

“You always say that.”

“It’s always true.”

The stranger smiles, or frowns it is difficult to tell. Their expression is a thing glimpsed through fog, the suggestion of emotion without the clarity of features. “I keep hoping that today is the day you do not return.”

The man exhales. The breath fogs in the air, though it should not, not here. “Perhaps.”

The world shifts.

It does not shatter or twist it slides, like a curtain being drawn aside. The tiled floor fades into grass, damp and uneven. The air smells of rain that has not yet fallen. The fluorescent light of the train station was replaced with the soft light of the setting sun. The bench remains, but it is now at the center of a field bordered by tall, swaying reeds.

The stranger stretches their legs, watching the setting sun that will never set upon the horizon. “Do you ever wonder if this is all you’re chasing? Lights in the dark? Things that don’t exist? Me?”

The man does not answer at once; the last word draws him cold. He follows the horizon with his eyes, counting down the seconds while the sun remains where it ever was. His throat feels tight.

“I think about it all the time,” he admits. “That maybe the things I want are nothing more than dreams. That maybe I’m holding on to shadows.”

“And yet you keep holding.”

“I do not know how to stop.”

A sad smile appears upon the stranger’s face only to be gone a second later, as if it was never there.

They speak of small things after that. He tells the stranger of the soup he ate for dinner, how it tasted faintly of peppers and tomatoes. The stranger tells him about a cat they saw, though neither of them is sure where such a sighting could have occurred. They laugh softly at the absurdity, their voices mingling with the sound of grass swaying against the wind.

The world listens.

Here, in this strange expanse, the weight of the waking world loosens, and he feels, as he always does by the stranger’s side, that the world is not so lonely after all.

The shadows lengthen as they speak, their tops vanishing into a sky that now glows with faint constellations, patterns unfamiliar yet comforting. Fireflies start drifting around them, flying higher and higher, becoming stars themselves, until it is impossible to know where firelight ends and starlight begins.

The man feels lighter here, though a weight remains beneath it all, like an anchor tied to his still heart.

“Tell me, “The stranger says suddenly, “why do you chase what you know will vanish? What is it you expect to find at the end of that?”

The man opens his mouth, closes it again. His hands curl into fists against his knees. “Maybe I’m afraid of stopping,” he says at last. “If I stop, there’s nothing left. At least when I chase, there is the illusion of motion. Of a destination.”

The stranger regards him quietly. “Even if the journey destroys you?”

“Especially then.”

The world shifts again.

Now they are in a library. Shelves spiral upward like gnarled branches of a tree, their books bound in colors he has never seen before, shades that feel like the colour of magic itself, like emotions made solid. Soot sprites move in the air, though when he reaches for them, they scatter like frightened birds. The bench is now a table carved from ebony, heavy and cold, its surface etched with words that seem to dance as he watches.

The stranger idly runs their fingers across the markings, though their hand seems blurred, indistinct. “You are afraid,” they say simply.

“I am not.”

“You are. You fear that eventually you will forget and be forgotten in turn. That you are already gone, and the only proof you existed is the footsteps you left behind.”

The man’s throat aches. He cannot find a reply.

Their conversation turns mundane again, perhaps mercifully so. He asks if the stranger has ever read the books on these shelves. The stranger answers with a shrug, some of them yes, others no, sometimes the books have yet to be written, and he must wait.

He asks if they are tired, if they sleep here, if they dream within dreams.
The stranger laughs at that thought. The stranger’s laughter echoes strangely, like the wind passing through the rooms in an empty house.

And still, the world listens.

The shelves bend and ripple. Some books open their pages inviting to be read. Others vanish into the shadows as if they never were. The books themselves breathe faintly, their covers pulsing like heartbeats.

The faint smell of burnt coffee hangs in the air. The man feels dizzy, as though the air itself is shifting beneath his lungs. He grips the edge of the table to steady himself.

“Why do you always wait for me here?” he asks suddenly.

The stranger tilts their head. “Because you keep coming back.”

The world changes again.

Now it is a city street at night, empty except for the two of them. The lamps glow with a too bright yellowness, and the pavement gleams as though wet, though no rain has fallen. The buildings are facades without doors or windows, painted illusions that threaten to peel away even as they walk by.

The man and the stranger walk side by side, their footsteps echoing louder than they should.

“I do not want to be here,” the man says softly.

“Yes, you do,” the stranger replies.

“I don’t think I’m meant to be here,” the man answers
“You are not,”

“Then why am I?”

The stranger does not answer. Instead, they gesture toward the lamps. As the man watches, the light within them flickers, dims, and finally extinguishes, one by one, until the street ahead is nothing but darkness.

“You chase dreams,” the stranger says at last, voice softer now, almost kind. “But dreams cannot hold you. They shift, they fade, they leave you grasping at what was never yours to begin with.
The stranger stares right at the man,” I am only ever just a dream.”

The man feels his chest tighten. “Then what am I supposed to hold on to?”

The stranger stops walking. In the half-light, their form shimmers, breaking apart at the edges like smoke. “Perhaps nothing at all.”

The silence that follows is unbearable.

The man wants to shout, to demand answers, but the words will not come. His mouth is dry, his throat locked. He reaches out, trying to grasp the stranger before him, something he has never done before. The city fades around them, lamps vanishing, facades crumbling into dust. Soon, there is nothing but darkness.

And then he is alone.

The man wakes.

The ceiling above him is blank, pale in the first light of dawn. His sheets are tangled, damp with sweat. His body feels heavy, as though dragged up from great depths.

For a long time, he lies still, staring at the ceiling, trying to remember the shape of the stranger’s face, the sound of their voice. Already it is slipping away, details dissolving like smoke in the wind. He holds on as tightly as he can, but it is of no use.

The memory fragments. The worlds fade.

And yet, even as he rises to face another day of working, eating, walking home, pretending not to think too much. he knows, with a certainty that weighs more than anything else, that when he sleeps again, the stranger will be waiting.

Waiting, as always, in the place where nothing is what it seems.