Chapter 1

It was silent. Not the peaceful kind, but the kind that pressed against the walls—almost listening quietly.

It was dark. For a moment, he wasn’t sure if he had actually opened his eyes. The room’s corners were blending into one another like spilled ink. 

Only a thin, pale glow slipped through the blinds. It was neither sunlight nor moonlight, just the neighboring house's light. 

They were always up before daylight.

Eli turned his head toward the digital clock. It read 4:30 A.M. 

He usually woke up before his alarm, but today he had woken an hour and a half earlier than usual.

Eli sighed in the sight of his bedroom. A thin crack ran across the ceiling above his bed, resembling a scar. Each morning, his gaze drifted to it until his mind caught up with his body.

Downstairs, one could clearly hear Naomi already preparing breakfast for both of them. He got up, brushed his hair back with his bare fingers, and stared at the cheval mirror standing in one corner.

Another day in monotony, he thought, staring at the mirror beside his bed. His dark eyes fixed on his pale skin, an unfinished sketch lacking vibrancy—a bare existence. Around him, the world's colors seemed to have faded away, and he perceived the world in just black and white. It's like a mechanical system that lacks anything but repetitive and monochromatic routines. Everything lacked emotion and variety, as if all had been programmed from the beginning.

"There you are," Naomi immediately greeted after spotting Eli climbing down the stairs.

She was already used to waking up this early. It almost became a part of their usual routine as siblings.

Naomi was Eli's elder sister. She was currently in her last year of high school. The two of them were the only ones living together. Both their parents were working overseas and would only come to visit them once a year. Since then, Naomi had become a parent to Eli. Using the money their father had been sending them every month, she would do her best to provide for his needs and nurture him in every possible way. Nothing in the world could match her love for her younger brother.

"Did you manage to sleep?" Naomi asked. She gently put down the fork she had just used.

"Kind of...m-maybe?" Eli stuttered, unsure of how he would describe his slumber. He had been able to sleep at 10:00 PM, which was his usual bedtime. However, amidst the night, he had been constantly waking up and then falling back again quickly. Yet he didn't feel any signs of sleep deprivation at all, unlike the previous times when he would feel worn out after waking up. "Maybe not entirely a good night's sleep, but at least I don't feel dead on one's feet."

"At least that's somehow promising, isn't it?”

"I guess so, is it?" While taking his first scoops, Eli was thinking of a way to change the topic of their conversation until he spotted the bunch of lilies in the dining table vase. There had always been lilies there, but this time, they were a different type. "What's with the new flowers?" he wondered. "Aren't the previous ones mom's favorite?”

“They wilted, so I had to take them away,” Naomi responded, alternatingly taking a spoonful of food in her mouth. “I couldn’t find any of those Eastern Lilies last night. So I guess, these white Asiatic Lilies, if I recall correctly, would do for now.”

“Won’t she get mad if she found out you changed them?"

“What?” Naomi crossed her eyebrows, but a gentle smirk could still be seen on her face. “Isn’t that a bit too silly for her to get mad about? Besides, these would probably wither away before they come here again, so I can replace them before mom sees them.”

“Alright, if you say so.”

“But hey, don’t try to change our conversation.” Naomi’s expression turned serious, but with a touch of gentle worry. “I’m happy to hear you’re starting to get good sleep lately. You know, if your insomnia persists, we should really do something about it, or you’ll start seeing things that aren’t there.”

Eli almost smiled. If only there were things worth seeing.

Eli walked under a sky that looked more like dust than clouds. The air was still, soundless except for the scrape of his shoes against the pavement. People passed him—classmates, strangers—but their faces blurred in his memory as soon as they were gone. He always paid attention to his surroundings, but people always seemed hard to remember.

Each day, everything was familiar—the streets, the cars, and the barely audible murmurings among people.

Besides his sister, the only difference he could notice was Yuan.

“Morning!” Yuan greeted, waiting by the front gate of their school, as he always did, a book tucked under his arm. He was the only one who didn’t feel like part of the colorless background. “You didn’t look like you fought gravity all night today.”

“I fought, but I somehow won this time,” Eli said flatly.

“Well then, congratulations!” Yuan chuckled, the sound low and calm.

They walked together toward the classrooms, talking about nothing important—half-finished assignments, the teacher’s dull voice, and some random stories springing around school. That was until Eli noticed the book Yuan was currently holding.

“New book again?” Eli asked.

“Uh-huh,” Yuan responded, holding the book right in front of him, enough for both of them to clearly read the title and admire the cover art. “A horror one.”

“Dreams...” He uttered, reading the title. “So what’s it about? Is it good? I hope it’s as good as the art on the front cover,” Eli couldn’t help but admire the design of the book’s front cover.

“Yeah, seeing these occult things—the runes, sigils, and stuff is what caught my attention. But I don’t know, it doesn’t seem kinda horror to me.”

“Really? How do you say so?”

“I don’t know. The story’s all over the place.” Yuan scratched the side of his head while staring at the book.

“Coming from you? Then, it’s definitely confusing.”

“Well, I can’t fully judge it yet. I’m still halfway there.”

“Maybe the ending’s good?”

“Hope so,” he replied, followed by a moment of silence between the two.

They entered their classroom when Yuan finally spoke and broke it.

“Do you ever think,” Yuan said as they sat down before class, “that maybe dreams are more real than this?”

Eli looked at him. “Why would they be?”

“Because they feel like something,” Yuan replied. “Reading this book makes me think that what if life is just a dream, and death is just us waking up?”

Coincidentally, the bell rang just as a tall lady with an hourglass figure and almond-shaped eyes, with lids curving smoothly into a soft taper, suddenly entered the classroom. She was their mathematics teacher, Miss Yang. She placed her hand-carried belongings—mostly chalk—on the wooden desk at the front of the room. All the students greeted her in chorus, “Good morning, Miss Yang!”

The last part of their conversation lingered in Eli’s mind all day.

By the time the final bell rang, Eli went to the town’s park–where he and Yuan would always go after school, only this time, Yuan was not able to come with him. He had errands to attend to at home that day, he told him.

He moved his eyes around and watched people do their activities. 

On one side of the park, a family of four was playing with their golden retriever. The father would throw a baseball, which the dog would chase. The two children would come running after the dog as if they were chasing it as well. The mother was beside the father, laughing and cheering with them as she watched over her family. 

On the opposite side, two people, who seemed to be couples, were strolling in serenity by the flowerbed. The boy would seem to tell something to the girl–probably a joke–that would make her laugh demurely. 

By the fountain, a man wearing a sparkly coat and a glittering top hat was performing. He was surrounded by a number of people. He was doing a public magic show. Rabbits appearing out of the hat, tables floating by just using a cloth, objects appearing inside an empty paper bag—he had done it all. People would always give him a round of applause every time he finished a trick. Some were astonished, while others were skeptical. Moreover, they all enjoyed the show, especially the young ones.

Eli witnessed them all: their smiles, their laughter, their despair, and their frustrations, yet he still couldn't feel a thing.

Bland and colorless, possibly scripted or not, he felt like watching through an old television. Although old televisions were much better, he thought.

As the afternoon got later, people slowly disappeared. Eli remained seated, watching them one by one walk away and vanish from the vicinity. The world seemed emptied out.

The park had gone quiet. The laughter and mutterings that once filled the atmosphere disappeared. Only the fountain’s gentle murmur could be heard, blending with the faint hiss of the wind brushing against the benches.

Eli felt the gusts caressing his skin, the sun glaring at him with a colorless warmth. He stayed still, eyes fixed on the fountain’s ripples. The water glimmered with the dim glow of a nearby lamp post that had just opened a few minutes ago, trembling faintly with each drop that fell. He wasn’t sure why he stayed sitting. All he knew was it was now more peaceful.

He thought of the people he had seen earlier—the family, the couple, and the children. Those were the sights he would always see by staying there, yet he still wondered how they all seemed to fit together. They seemed to have colors in them, but when he watched them, it was like staring through fogged glass. They existed, but not for him. He felt disconnected to the world he was moving in.

He leaned back against the bench and looked up. Even the sky looked tired—endless sheets of gray pressing down above the roofs and tree branches. Everything above and below him felt the same shades of black and white.

“What if life is really just a dream, and death is just us waking up?” Yuan’s question replayed in his thoughts. The question had lingered, but it was only now that he might have finally understood what he had meant.

Dreams were strange and unpredictable, yet alive. They meant something, even though they made no sense. The possibilities were limitless. Reality, on the other hand, was just as it had always been.

His eyes were once again pinned on the fountain as a small breath escaped from him, almost a laugh but not quite. The water kept moving, flickering and dancing with the dim light.

“What if life really is just a dream and death is a way to wake up,” he murmured to himself, quiet enough to vanish into the rustling sound of late afternoon winds. “Maybe dying wouldn’t be so bad at all…”