I keep having these sequences of memories, they’ll come to me when I’m doing the most mundane things. The thing is, I can’t ever remember not having them. Bursts of colour, sometimes vivid, sometimes I can barely grasp a second of them. I’m not quite sure when it started. I haven’t told Andy, my brother, he’d call me nuts, unhinged. Say, ’It’s just de ja vu Chloe, you’re such a fantasist.’

And I suppose he isn’t wrong, I do love to daydream, so it doesn’t help my case when I'm convinced, certain, that I’m having other people's dreams.

Today, for example, I was making tea, green, it always soothes my nerves. And then a memory so vivid, so real, I began to question whether I was making tea, and was the memory I was having real life and I was simply dreaming of tea? But no, no. That would be ludicrous...

I manage to get to sleep, drifting in and out of consciousness.

“Chloe.” A voice sounds.

Silence.

“Chloe.” More insistent this time.

Andy? He sounds different, I don’t open my eyes, if I do sleep will be out of the question.

Oh for god sake.

What on earth did he want?

I open my eyes, a dim lighting peeks from under my doorway, I rub my eyes, trying to make out what’s going on, and when I snap out of sleep my vision clears and I’m sure my heart has stopped. A tall dark figure stands there, a man’s figure, cloaked.

I scramble to the other side of my room by the window, my tired body overtook by my alert brain.

“Andy?” I say his name though I know in my bones it isn’t him.

No, okay. This is another dream.

The figure steps closer, and I can see he’s at least a foot taller than Andy. Broader in the shoulders too, and as he steps nearer his face comes into view. Who is _that? _

_“ANDY!” _I scream and quickly realise that only my mouth has opened, no noise comes from it.

“Chloe it’s okay. You’re safe.” The voice of the figure speaks in a deep grumble, its echo teasing my spine.

He stays rooted on the spot, about five feet from me, the light from the moon emphasises his green eyes, his jawbones are strikingly sharp, and he looks so perfect he’s almost inhuman.

“Who are you? Where’s Andy?” I manage to get out somehow, my nerves squeeze around my air pipes.

“You’ve been having some difficulties distinguishing reality and fiction haven’t you Chloe?” He says.

What? How can he possibly know that? Who is this?

His eyes glint for a moment, and I’m sure I must be dreaming, they change to a darker shade of green. I need to get out of this corner. Now! He has me trapped, he must be at least six foot five, and two hundered and thirty plus pounds of muscle. I don’t like my chances.

“ANDY!” I scream until my throat burns. This can’t be happening, I have to be trapped in some sort of hell loop.

Okay, pinch yourself. I take some skin on my arm between my fingertips and as I increase the pressure I feel the throbbing of my flesh. What? How is this real?

“My name is Theo, you summoned me, Chloe .”

_What? _No, this isn’t real. It’s not.

But he sounds so real.

“Ugh! Stop saying my name! You don’t know me! This is a dream!”

**Wake up, wake up, wake up. **

I go to run but he steps in my path, ”Andy is safe, he’s sleeping.” He says as if that’s the final say on the matter.

“Sleeping? How can he be sleeping I just screamed. What have you done to him?” I hiss.

He ponders on the question for a moment, and after a short pause he responds, ”It’s altered sleep, in simple terms, he won’t wake until I wake him.”

He encases his palm over his hand and takes a step towards me. A flight response seems to freeze me because I can’t seem to move from him.

I can’t bring myself to believe him, I just can’t.

This is nonsense. I’m just unwell. This is just a bad episode, a purgatory nightmare. This goes beyond anything feasible, this just can’t be true, it has to be some sick joke my brain loves playing all too well.

I’ll wake up in a few hours and get myself to the doctor, yes, that’s what I’ll do.

“Chloe I can sense your doubt, this isn’t a dream.”

I claw at my hair, trying to focus intently on waking up.

“Just get out of my house please, or my head. Whatever. I don’t know what this is or what you’re doing, but I want no part in it.”

“I’m only here because you wanted me to be, Chloe.” He says, unflinching at my demand for him to leave.

“This can’t be real. It just can’t.”

I take a seat on my bed and immediately note how real the covers feel against my skin.

Oh god. I don’t think this is a dream.

“Please explain what’s happening. I feel insane, who are you?” My emotions begin to overflow, my face heats as tears threaten to spill.

He stands at the end of my bed, and my pulse begins to thrum harder when his green eyes pin themselves onto mine. I have to be going insane, have to be, this is just one of my bad dreams. The ones I couldn’t tell from reality, that’s all.

“This will be a lot to take in, but just stay with me. I’m a night watcher. I protect dreams, I can enter your dreams, and ensure you’re safe. I’ve been stationed to you for some time, and yours have been rather concerning lately Chloe. And the panic you’ve been feeling recently, the panic of not knowing whether you were dreaming or were awake, I felt it. Essentially your panic summoned my physical presence. But these dreams you are having, they aren’t yours, are they.” This isn’t a question, he knows.

Night watcher? Stationed? _What? _

How could he possibly know that though? Any of it. Am I dead? Will I wake up in a few weeks to find I’ve been in a coma? Loved ones by my side? Maybe this is why it feels so real, the anaesthetic could be making it that way.

“How did you know that?”

“I told you, Chloe, I’ve seen your dreams, you get to know a lot about a person through

them.“

Seen my dreams? Okay, this is ridiculous.

I have a vast imagination, but this is insanity.

“This is ridiculous, what is this?” I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry.

“Why me? Why is this happening to me?”

He ponders my question for a moment, and I’m certain he winces before the expression passes.

“I need you to trust me, Chloe. With your life. I may be the only one who can help you. If you allow me to. I need you to come with me, to my world.”

What? No. No, I can’t. I don’t know a thing about this man. And yet he knows things about me. Things no one else does. I’ve never heard of a thief being able to read minds. What if this actually is true? Maybe he’s the _only_ person I can trust. I can’t tell Andy, he constantly dismisses me.

What do I have to lose? I mean really, maybe this could solve things. I could never have predicted this. Who could? For my world to be turned on its axis, to discover things which are only told in stories. Though, I’ve always believed that there was something out there, something more than this two-dimensional realm. I’m just shocked at my acceptance of all of this, and what that says about me.

“First, show me this isn’t a dream. Prove to me this is real.”

His mouth holds a hint of a smile.

“You need to trust your instinct that it is, Chloe.”

“But for good measure..” He walks towards me and stops a few inches from me. I’m overwhelmed by his smell, rich and woody, like a forest, mixed with man. Is he a man? He looks like some sort of angel.

He looks down at me with an intensity I can’t look away from. From this angle, I could see his face in astonishing detail. He was beautiful. Achingly so. No one could be this perfect.

He offers his palms to me suggesting for me to place mine in his. When I do so he says, ”Close your eyes, and focus on the feel of my skin, my palms, the way air enters your body, and leaves it.”

I focus on the deep husk of his voice and allow it to guide me.

I feel a warm sensation in my chest, it then travels, reaching my spine.

What did he do?

He instructs me to open my eyes and when I do, my heart lurches in my throat, my hand involuntarily tightening around his. His eyes have changed, now an icy silver.

“Don’t be frightened.” He soothes.

I feel entranced by his stare now as if he’s doing some sort of hypnosis on me.

I can’t doubt him, now. This is happening.

“Do you trust me now Chloe?”

I find that I don’t need any time to think about the question.

“Yes.”

“Close your eyes for me.”

I do so, hesitant, but curious. The room starts to get warmer, and my limbs feel like jelly.

He’s still holding my hands when I open my eyes, and I’m unable to hold back my shock, gasping when I see the sights surrounding me.

Colours I’ve never seen before paint the space, colours I can’t comprehend, the air is almost sparkling.

It’s nearing night now, the window behind Theo is almost double the length of my house, similar to one of a church with a rounded top and rectangular base. Accent-lighted bookcases line the walls. Pinks and oranges paint the sky.

Wow.

Where are we?

“It’s a lot to take in. We don’t show this to just anyone Chloe, you must know that.”

“You mean I’m special somehow?” I ask jokingly but he remains serious.

“Yes.”

I look down and realise I’m still holding his hands, “Sorry.” I huff a laugh.

His eyes glitter with amusement, ”Would you take a seat for me?”

He sits behind the lavish desk placed directly in front of the window.

“Now, tell me of the dreams you believe aren’t yours.”

Oh god. I finally have to voice this.

”There are these faces in my dreams, faces I’ve never seen before, but when I’m dreaming I have this lurching familiarity with these people. I found one once, one of the people, by mistake actually. I had never seen him in my life. And then there’s the memories too they just hit me, but they aren’t mine. I thought maybe I was missing time, but it happened too frequently.”

His eyes run across my face with a staggering intensity.

“This is worse than I thought.” He gets out of his chair and turns towards the window, his voice low.

“What? What is?” My head scrambles with horrific scenarios.

He casts a glance at me over his shoulder from the window.

I don’t like that look.

I immediately feel the air sucked from the room, my lungs contrict, as each aching second he’s silent, passes.

His words have me flipping through my memories and my dreams, and I can’t be certain that this is just recent.

“Actually..”

“I think this has happened before.”

Theo turns to me, his silver eyes somehow darkening, “When?”

“Being truthful with myself, I’m not sure if it ever stopped.”

His gaze turns back to the window, his body vibrating with concern, “Fuck.” He mutters low under his breath.

“I should have intervened sooner.”