The light inside the dorm room was always this particular shade of late afternoon gold, thick and bruised, even when it was the middle of an actual night outside. It filtered through the drawn curtains, a defiance that only existed in the exact architecture of Ethan’s engineered sleep cycle. His eyes were closed, really, somewhere under layers of blanket and two over-the-counter sleep aids that tasted faintly of sugar and ash. But here, in this meticulously constructed illusion, they were wide open, fixed on Alex.
Alex perched on the window ledge, just as he always did, one leg dangling into the room, the other bent, foot flat against the sill. It was a dangerous habit, even a few stories up, a casual disregard for gravity that had always made Ethan’s stomach clench. But in the dream, there was no risk. Only the familiar curve of Alex’s spine, the way his dark hair caught that impossible golden light, like something spun from a memory too precious to fade.
“You’re still not done with that essay,” Alex stated, not really a question. His voice was a low hum, resonant and clear, the kind that vibrated against Ethan’s ribs. It was a voice that belonged to solid things, to warm hands and sharp laughter. The kind of voice Ethan hadn’t actually heard in… too long. A duration he refused to measure.
Ethan shifted on his worn desk chair, the faux leather creaking in protest. “It’s almost done.” A lie, a comfortable one they’d played out countless times. The essay was on modernist literature, a subject Ethan loathed, but one Alex had always found endlessly fascinating. Alex had this way of making even the most mundane things feel important, necessary.
“Almost done,” Alex echoed, a hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He picked at a loose thread on his faded jeans, his fingers long and agile. “Meaning you’ve opened the document, stared at the blinking cursor for an hour, and then decided a comprehensive review of last season’s hockey stats was more pressing.”
A small flush crept up Ethan’s neck. Alex knew him too well, even this dream-Alex. Especially this dream-Alex. The air between them, usually so charged with unspoken things, was light, playful. It was the easy camaraderie that was the hardest to replicate, the one that broke first when the dream started to fray. But not yet. Not this time, he begged, silently, to whatever nebulous architect governed these long, dark hours.
“The statistics are crucial to understanding the futility of human endeavor,” Ethan said, attempting a dramatic sigh. He watched Alex, cataloging every detail. The faint scar above his left eyebrow from a childhood bike accident. The way his lower lip, fuller than the top, always caught the light. The subtle movement of his throat when he swallowed.
Alex chuckled, a soft sound that felt like rain on a dry street. “Right. And your ‘futility of human endeavor’ involves a B minus and a stern email from Professor Sterling.” He paused, looking out the window, past the thin, insubstantial glass. The dream-world outside was a blur of autumn trees, leaves the color of dying embers, gently falling. A distant chime sounded, like a church bell muffled by miles of thick forest.
Ethan’s gaze tracked the line of Alex’s jaw, the strong column of his neck. He felt the familiar pull, a visceral ache that was both comfort and torment. Every fiber of him wanted to close the distance, to bridge the space between them, even if it was just to annoy Alex, to poke him off his precarious perch. But this was the dream, and in the dream, Alex was always slightly out of reach, a vibrant, tantalizing figure framed by a window that led to elsewhere.
“I just need a few more hours,” Ethan mumbled, trying to inject some genuine annoyance into his voice, to ground the interaction, make it real enough to last. The words felt like sandpaper in his throat. He just needed more time. That was the core, the absolute, undeniable truth of his existence.
Alex turned back, his expression softening. The gold light seemed to deepen around him, creating an almost halo effect. “A few more hours won’t help the fact that it’s due tomorrow, you know.”
The words hung in the air, sudden and sharp, like a shard of ice in warm water. *Due tomorrow.* The simple phrase, innocent in its context, ripped through the fabric of the dream with a brutal efficiency. Ethan’s stomach plummeted. *Tomorrow.* He knew. He knew. The deadline. He’d missed it. He hadn’t just missed the essay deadline, he’d missed *every* deadline. The entire semester. The entire *year*. The world had moved on, and he had simply… stopped.
The gold light around Alex flickered, thinning, as if a cloud had passed over an unseen sun. The leaves outside the window seemed to fall faster, blurring into streaks. Ethan’s breath hitched. He tried to speak, but his tongue felt thick, cottony. The essay. The missed classes. The calls from the university, the unanswered texts from his parents. They were real. They were waiting. They were a suffocating weight just beyond the edges of this perfect, fragile room.
Alex watched him, a knowing sadness in his eyes. The casual pose on the window ledge seemed less playful now, more like a farewell. His hands, which had been idly picking at his jeans, stilled. He lowered his foot to the floor, a soft thud that vibrated through the dream’s silence.
Ethan felt a cold dread seep into his bones, a familiar chill that had become his constant companion in the waking world. He didn’t want Alex to move. He didn’t want Alex to *know*. To acknowledge the gaping, horrifying truth that separated them. Because once Alex acknowledged it, the dream would splinter. It always did.
“You look… tired,” Alex said, his voice dropping to a near whisper. It was a statement, not a question. His gaze was steady, piercing, seeing right through the elaborate defenses Ethan had built around himself, even in sleep. Ethan felt exposed, raw. He wanted to curl up, disappear into the fake leather of the chair, vanish from Alex’s calm, accepting view.
“I’m fine,” Ethan managed, the lie tasting like rust. He pushed himself out of the chair, his movements clumsy, hurried. He needed to touch Alex. To anchor him here, in this impossible place, before the reality outside clawed its way in. Before the silence returned.
He took a step, then another, his bare feet cool against the worn dorm room carpet. The air grew colder, each breath catching in his chest. The room, which had been so vibrant, so utterly real moments ago, now felt like a stage set, ready to be struck. The colors began to leach, fading from rich gold to a sickly, pale yellow.
Alex stood, completely, turning to face Ethan. His hands were tucked casually into his pockets, but his eyes, deep and knowing, held a gentle sorrow. He was taller, broader than Ethan, a grounding presence that Ethan used to lean into, physically and emotionally. Now, he felt a frantic, desperate urge to close that gap, to feel the familiar weight of Alex’s arm, the warmth of his skin.
“Wake up,” Alex said, the words cutting through the thin air. His voice, once so full, now sounded distant, as if coming from another room, another dimension. “You have to eat something.”
Ethan shook his head, a frantic, almost infantile gesture. “No. Not yet. Please, Alex. Not yet.” His voice cracked on the last word, sounding thin and reedy. He reached out, his hand trembling, fingers splayed, desperate to grasp something, anything, solid. He saw the faint outline of Alex’s hand, so close, just inches away, illuminated by the dying, bruised light.
Alex’s smile was sad, profoundly so, and utterly real. More real than anything else in the rapidly collapsing dream. It was a goodbye. “Go on, Ethan.” His eyes, the color of wet river stones, met Ethan’s with an intensity that made Ethan’s entire body ache. “You can’t stay here.”
Ethan’s fingers brushed against Alex’s. A fleeting contact, barely there, like static electricity before a storm. No warmth. Only a faint, tingling echo, already fading. He tried to grip, to hold on, to sink his fingers into the imagined flesh, to pull Alex back, to pull *himself* back into the warmth of the illusion.
But the resistance wasn’t Alex pulling away. It was the dream itself, unraveling from the edges, fraying into nothingness. The colors bled out completely. The golden light vanished, replaced by a grey, indistinct haze. Alex’s form wavered, becoming translucent, a ghost of a memory, shimmering at the periphery of Ethan’s dissolving consciousness.
“Alex!” The name tore from Ethan’s throat, a raw, desperate cry. He forced his eyes open within the dream, a violent, tearing sensation, as if ripping through wet paper. The blurry form of Alex was still there, for a fraction of a second, a silent, sorrowful silhouette against a rapidly brightening, indistinct background. Then, nothing. Just a crushing, absolute silence, cold and heavy, pressing in from all sides.
He woke violently, a strangled gasp escaping his lips. His body arched, muscles screaming, a jolt of pure adrenaline shooting through him. He thrashed, tangled in the heavy blackout curtains he’d pinned to the wall, momentarily disoriented by the harsh reality of the afternoon light filtering through the tiny gaps along the top. Not the bruised gold of the dream, but a sharp, unforgiving autumn glare, stark and cold. The air in the room was stale, thick with the scent of unwashed sheets and lingering sleep aid. His head throbbed, a dull ache behind his eyes.
He pushed himself upright, his heart hammering against his ribs, sounding like a frantic drummer in the deafening quiet. He was in his bed, the same bed, in the same room. Not the dorm room. This was the apartment, small and empty, rented in the hopes of a fresh start that had never truly begun. His eyes, still bleary, found the window. The sill was bare. Cold. The grey light outside was flat, relentless, reflecting off the damp leaves clinging to the pavement below. There was no Alex. There was no argument, no playful banter, no warm, solid presence. Only the lingering phantom chill where a hand should have been.