The village of Ravin never dreamed.
Not the old farmers, not the lantern-makers, not the wide-eyed children who ran through misty mornings. Night after night, they closed their eyes to perfect silence — a sleep without images, without thoughts, without colors. No one remembered when the dreams had disappeared. They only remembered that after the dreaming stopped, the dying began.
But Lior dreamed.
And every time he did, the world changed.
---
He sat alone by the edge of the lake, his knees pulled close to his chest, the silver waters still beneath the soft breath of dawn. He hadn't slept in two nights, and it was starting to show — his hands trembled, his lips were dry, and every shadow in the corner of his vision looked like it wanted to speak to him.
The last time he dreamed, he had woken up to find that the old clocktower in the center of the village was gone — not broken, not destroyed, just never built. No one remembered it, not even the mayor, who used to polish its brass doors every morning.
And yet… Lior remembered it.
He remembered standing beneath it as a child, remembered its ringing bells and spiral stairs, remembered the mural of stars carved into its stone. He'd even drawn it, once — crude lines with charcoal, hidden in the folds of his old journal. That was the only proof it had ever existed.
Proof that something was terribly wrong.
And that it all led back to him.
---
"Lior."
A soft voice.
He turned.
Standing behind him was Mira, her dark hair tied in a careless knot, a faded scarf wrapped around her throat. She had that look in her eyes again — half-worried, half-knowing. She always seemed like she knew more than she should, especially about him.
"You haven't slept, have you?" she asked, sitting beside him.
Lior looked down. "No."
She didn't scold him. She never did.
Instead, she took something out of her coat pocket — a tiny glass jar. Inside it: a swirl of glittering blue mist, like a storm in miniature.
"What is that?"
"Someone's dream," she whispered.
Lior blinked. "I thought no one dreamed anymore."
"They don't," she said. "That's why this is special. I found it buried under the roots of the old birch tree. It was… humming."
Lior reached out to touch the jar, but stopped.
There was something wrong with it. The mist inside wasn't moving randomly — it was spinning, forming shapes: a hand, a broken moon, an eye opening.
"I think it's yours," Mira said.
Lior drew back. "No. I've never dreamed that."
"Yes," she said slowly. "But you will."
---
That night, he gave in to sleep.
His body couldn't fight anymore. The fatigue came like the ocean — slow at first, then all at once.
And he dreamed.
---
He stood in a city made of glass, under a sky where the stars moved like insects. Buildings towered in impossible spirals, stitched together with light. The moon was split in half, bleeding golden dust into the air.
And in the center of the city stood a girl.
Not Mira.
Someone else.
Her hair was silver. Her dress was torn. Her back was turned.
Lior tried to speak, but his voice was stolen by the wind. The girl turned.
Her face was his.
No… not quite.
It was almost his — but older, sadder, colder. And her eyes were not human. They flickered with galaxies.
"You created this," she said. "And you're going to destroy it."
"I don't understand," he said.
She walked toward him, and with each step, the dream cracked beneath her feet like glass. "You are not one person. You are a collection of selves — scattered across dying timelines. You are a mistake that keeps dreaming itself into being."
"I'm just a boy—"
"No," she said. "You are the last Dreambearer. And something has followed you. It remembers the worlds you forget. And now… it's remembering you."
Suddenly, the sky shattered.
Black tendrils poured from the clouds, screeching like broken violins. The city screamed. The stars blinked out. And Lior saw something crawling out of the cracks in the dream — a shadow with no shape, no face, only hunger.
He ran.
But before the dream could consume him, he awoke—
—gasping.
Alone.
But not in his bed.
---
He was lying on the roof of a building that shouldn't exist — a spiraling tower of brass, gears, and timeworn stone.
The clocktower.
It was back.
But no one else would remember it.
No one except Mira.
And perhaps… the thing that now knew where he was.