It started with silence.
A silence so pure, so deep, it was as if the entire world had taken a breath... and forgot how to exhale.
I sat on my bed, staring at the pale ceiling.
My clock ticked steadily beside me—tick, tick, tick—but my body refused to surrender.
No weight in my eyelids. No drifting thoughts. No dreams pulling me down.
Just... wakefulness.
At first, I thought it was normal.
Stress, maybe. School, life, stupid anxieties.
But an hour passed.
Two hours.
Three.
Still wide awake. Still alert.
Still me.
I blinked. The world around me felt... sharper somehow.
Colors a bit brighter. Sounds a bit clearer.
Even my heartbeat seemed louder, stronger.
"Weird," I muttered to myself.
I turned off the light, pulled the blanket over my head, and pretended.
Pretended to sleep like a normal human being.
---
Morning
Mom's voice floated up the stairs.
"Mary! Breakfast!"
I sat up. No grogginess. No yawning.
Just... awake.
Like I'd never even needed the night.
As I padded downstairs, a strange thought whispered through me:
"What if I never sleep again?"
It should have scared me.
It didn't.
It thrilled me.
---
The First Days
The first few days were easy.
I spent the nights reading, sketching nonsense, or just walking around the house like a quiet ghost.
My body didn't ache.
My mind stayed clear.
Energy pulsed through me like a fresh river.
During the day, I acted normal.
Went to school. Talked to friends. Smiled at teachers.
Nobody noticed a thing.
If anything, I felt better than ever.
Sharper. Faster.
Almost... more.
At night, while everyone else drowned in dreams, I explored.
Sometimes I'd sit on the rooftop, watching the stars blink like lazy eyes.
Other times, I'd walk through the silent streets, feeling like the only living soul in a city of sleepers.
It was beautiful.
It was lonely.
It was mine.
---
The Change
By the end of the first week, I started noticing... changes.
At school, I could answer questions before the teachers even finished asking.
In gym class, my body felt lighter, quicker, as if gravity had loosened its grip on me.
I memorized entire pages from textbooks without trying.
Names, dates, formulas—all of it stuck like glue in my brain.
Even conversations felt different.
I could predict what people were about to say.
Feel the weight of emotions hanging unspoken in the air.
I wasn't just awake.
I was more awake than anyone around me.
It was exhilarating.
And terrifying.
But I told no one.
How could I?
"Hey, guess what, I forgot how to sleep and now I'm basically a superhuman?"
Yeah. That would go well.
---
The Dreamers
Late one night, while wandering the empty streets, I found something strange.
A boy about my age, standing completely still under a broken streetlight.
His eyes were open.
But he wasn't awake.
He was... sleepwalking.
Except it didn't feel like ordinary sleepwalking.
There was something off about him.
The way he moved, the way he mumbled to himself in a language I didn't understand.
I followed him at a distance.
He wandered through alleys, crossed empty roads without looking, and finally stopped at an abandoned house.
Without hesitation, he walked through the half-broken door.
And disappeared inside.
I should have turned back.
Gone home.
Pretended it never happened.
But curiosity burned hotter than fear.
I crept after him.
---
Inside the House
The air inside was thick.
Heavy with dust and... something else.
A buzzing, like invisible insects crawling over my skin.
The boy stood in the center of the ruined living room, eyes wide, whispering nonsense.
And around him, faint and flickering like candle flames, were... shapes.
Human-shaped, but wrong.
Too tall. Too thin.
Their edges blurred like smoke.
They watched him.
And somehow, I knew:
They weren't real.
But they weren't fake either.
Something between.
A dream bleeding into the waking world.
My heart pounded—not from fear, but from a fierce, strange excitement.
I could see them.
Me. Awake.
Them. Dream.
A bridge between two worlds.
And for the first time, I realized:
This was only the beginning.
---
The Watcher
As I stood frozen, one of the smoky figures turned.
It didn't have a face—just a smooth, blank surface where features should be.
Yet somehow... I felt it looking at me.
Directly at me.
A ripple of cold spread through my chest.
I took a step back.
The boy didn't move.
The shapes didn't move.
Only that one.
It drifted closer, not walking but gliding, as if pulled along invisible strings.
A voice—not spoken, but felt inside my skull—whispered:
"Awake... not meant to be..."
I stumbled backward, crashing into a broken table.
The noise shattered the stillness.
The boy blinked, gasped, and collapsed onto the floor.
The shapes flickered... then vanished like smoke in a breeze.
I stood there, panting, heart hammering against my ribs.
The boy groaned, confused, rubbing his head.
He looked at me, eyes wide with fear.
"Who... who are you?" he whispered.
I didn't know what to say.
Because the real question was:
What am I?
---
Running
I ran.
Out of the house.
Down the cracked sidewalk.
Through the dead-silent streets.
Ran until the houses blurred into smudges and my lungs burned with air too sharp to breathe.
Only when I reached the safety of my own bed did I stop.
I stared at the ceiling, wide-eyed, while the night pressed against the windows like a silent question.
Was I still human?
Was this what being "awake" truly meant?
---
A New Rule
That night, I made a rule:
Stay away from dreamers.
Whatever had happened back there, it wasn't normal.
It wasn't safe.
Maybe my insomnia was a gift.
Or maybe it was a curse.
Either way, I wasn't ready to dive deeper.
Not yet.
I would live my life.
Blend in.
Pretend.
Just like before.
---
Or so I thought.
---
The Stranger
It happened three nights later.
I was sitting on the rooftop again, legs swinging over the edge, watching the city hum under the starlight.
That's when I saw him.
A man in a black coat, standing perfectly still on the opposite rooftop.
Staring at me.
Even from across the street, I could feel it:
His awareness.
He wasn't sleepwalking.
He wasn't dreaming.
He was awake.
Like me.
A spark of recognition passed between us—silent, electric.
I stood up slowly.
He raised one hand in a small, deliberate wave.
Then he was gone.
Just... vanished into the night.
No sound.
No footsteps.
Gone.
I shivered, not from cold, but from the sudden, terrifying certainty:
I wasn't alone.
---
Questions with No Answers
The next day, I couldn't focus.
At school, words blurred into meaningless noise.
Faces passed in a stream of colors.
My mind kept replaying the encounter.
Who was he?
How did he disappear like that?
And most importantly:
What did he want from me?
---
At lunch, my friend Lisa noticed.
"You okay, Mary? You're zoning out like crazy."
I forced a smile. "Just tired."
Tired.
The irony almost made me laugh out loud.
If only she knew.
---
The Letter
That night, when I returned to my room, I found something strange.
A white envelope on my pillow.
No name. No address.
Just one word, written in neat black ink:
"Awake."
My heart skipped a beat.
I tore it open.
Inside was a single card.
Black, smooth, cold to the touch.
On one side, a symbol: a circle divided by a jagged line.
On the other, a time and place:
Midnight.
Crossroads Park.
No explanation.
No signature.
An invitation... or a warning.
Maybe both.
---
The Crossroads
Midnight.
The world was quieter than usual.
The kind of quiet that feels alive, breathing softly in the dark.
Crossroads Park sat at the edge of the city, where broken streetlights leaned like tired old men, and weeds burst through the cracked pavement.
I arrived early.
Waited under a dead oak tree, clutching the black card in my pocket like a lifeline.
Minutes dragged by.
Nothing.
Then, exactly at midnight, he appeared.
The man in the black coat.
No sound.
No warning.
Just there.
Standing a few feet away.
Close enough to see his face this time:
Sharp.
Pale.
Eyes darker than the night sky.
"You came," he said.
His voice was low, almost gentle.
"Who are you?" I demanded, my hands trembling slightly.
He smiled—a sad, tired smile.
"Someone like you," he said. "Someone who stayed awake."
---
The Offer
He introduced himself as Adrian.
Told me about the others—the few who had broken free from the "Cycle of Sleep," as he called it.
Explained that once someone became permanently awake, the boundaries between reality and dream began to weaken around them.
"Most people need sleep to trap their dreams inside," Adrian said. "Without it... dreams leak out."
"And those... things I saw?" I asked.
He nodded. "Fragments. Echoes. Some harmless. Some..."
He let the word hang in the air.
"Why me?" I asked.
"Why now?"
He shrugged.
"No one knows. Some say it's random. Others believe it's a calling."
He reached into his coat and pulled out a second black card.
Handed it to me.
"This is an invitation," he said. "There's a place for people like us."
"A place?" I repeated.
He nodded.
"A place to learn what we are. What we can become."
---
The Choice
Adrian didn't pressure me.
He simply pressed the card into my hand and disappeared into the mist like a ghost.
Leaving me alone with a choice:
Stay in my small, safe life.
Or step into a world I didn't understand.
I looked down at the card.
On its surface, new words appeared, shimmering faintly:
"The Lucid Sanctum."
Tomorrow. 2 A.M.
---
I closed my fingers around it.
Somewhere deep inside, I already knew:
There was no going back.
---
The Lucid Sanctum
The night was colder than usual.
The streets seemed darker, the shadows heavier.
At 2 A.M., I stood at the edge of an unfamiliar part of the city, where the old buildings felt as though they were slowly crumbling into the earth.
There, amidst the silent decay, I found it.
A door.
An old wooden door, nearly invisible against the cracked stone wall.
The kind you'd walk past without a second thought.
But tonight, it wasn't just a door.
It was the entrance to something... different.
I could feel it.
The air around it hummed with an energy I couldn't explain, like the hum of an electric field, just below the surface.
I reached out and touched the handle. It was warm.
Too warm.
Without thinking, I turned it.
---
The Sanctuary
The room inside was vast.
Endlessly vast.
A space that shouldn't have fit in such a small building. The walls stretched high into an unseen void.
The floor was a patchwork of polished stone, glowing faintly with ancient symbols.
Figures in cloaks moved in the distance, their faces hidden in shadows.
I stepped inside, the door closing softly behind me.
"Welcome," a voice echoed.
I turned, startled.
A tall figure emerged from the shadows.
A woman, wearing a hooded cloak, with eyes that shone like stars in a midnight sky.
"You made it," she said. "You're one of us now."
I opened my mouth, but no words came out.
The woman smiled, as though she understood.
"You're here to learn," she said. "To awaken fully."
---
The First Lesson
She led me deeper into the sanctum, through hallways that stretched endlessly, until we reached a circular room.
In the center, a stone pedestal glowed with an eerie, blue light.
Upon it, an object rested: a small, obsidian-like crystal.
"This," the woman said, "is what you seek."
I stepped forward, my fingers itching to touch it.
"Pick it up," she instructed.
I did.
The moment my fingers brushed against the cool surface, a surge of power coursed through me.
My vision blurred.
Suddenly, I was no longer standing in that room.
I was floating.
Drifting through what felt like an endless void.
I could see things.
Feel things.
The entire world, and beyond.
I saw memories—my memories—flashing before my eyes.
And then, I saw... other memories.
Dreams that didn't belong to me.
They were distant, blurry, but... real.
---
Awakening
And then, a voice pierced the void.
"Focus."
I snapped back.
The woman was standing before me, watching with an unreadable expression.
"Your mind... is opening," she said softly. "You're beginning to see beyond the limits of your own reality."
I took a deep breath, trying to steady my racing heart.
"What is this place?" I asked.
"A sanctuary," she replied. "A place where those like you can learn the truth of the world."
"And what truth is that?"
She smiled faintly.
"That everything you've ever known is a dream."
---
The Dreamworld Theory
We sat together in a chamber made of mirrors, the reflections shifting endlessly as if alive.
The woman—who finally introduced herself as Selene—began to explain.
"The world you live in," she said, her voice calm and patient, "is not the true world. It's a stabilized dream, collectively shaped by billions of sleepers."
I frowned. "But... it feels real."
She nodded. "Because it is real. Real enough to trap you. Real enough to bind your senses. But when you stop sleeping... when you stay awake long enough... you start to see the cracks."
She gestured to the mirrors.
Each one showed a different version of the city.
Some brighter.
Some twisted and dark.
"These are echoes," she said. "Fragments of dreams that failed, collapsed, or never took full form."
"And those... creatures?" I asked.
Selene's eyes darkened.
"Manifestations of broken dreams. Beings that slip through the cracks when dreamers lose control."
I shivered.
"So why me?" I asked again. "Why now?"
She smiled sadly.
"Some minds are simply born... different. Stronger. More curious. The Cycle can't hold you forever."
---
Training Begins
Over the next few hours—or maybe days; time seemed strange inside the Sanctum—I began my training.
Not physical training.
Mental.
Selene taught me how to focus my awareness, how to bend the fragments leaking into reality instead of letting them overwhelm me.
"Control your perception," she said. "Or it will control you."
The first exercise was simple... in theory.
She handed me a plain stone and told me to change it—not with my hands, but with my mind.
At first, nothing happened.
But slowly, very slowly, the stone began to warm under my palm.
Its surface shimmered.
It wasn't much.
But it was a start.
---
The Whisperers
Later, as I wandered the Sanctum's endless halls, I heard them.
Whispers.
At first, I thought it was my imagination.
The echoes of my own thoughts.
But no.
The whispers grew louder the deeper I went.
Calling my name.
Tugging at my mind.
"Mary..."
I turned corners blindly, following the voices.
Until I found it.
A door.
Old, iron-bound, pulsing faintly with light.
I reached for the handle—
"Don't," a voice said sharply behind me.
It was Adrian.
He looked more serious than before.
"That door," he said, "is not for you. Not yet."
I stepped back, heart pounding.
Adrian placed a firm hand on my shoulder.
"Some dreams are too dangerous to face unprepared," he said.
"And some truths... once seen... can't be unseen."
---
I stood there, frozen, staring at the closed door.
The man's words — "You're not ready" — echoed inside my skull, heavier than the night air pressing against my skin.
For a moment, I thought about reopening the door, about running after him... but my hand refused to move.
There was nothing on the other side now. Only silence. Only darkness.
I stepped back, the floor creaking under my weight.
The apartment felt suddenly too small, too suffocating — like the walls were whispering things I couldn't quite hear.
I needed air.
I needed space.
Without really thinking, I grabbed my jacket, pulled the door shut behind me, and headed out into the city streets.
The night was cold, but somehow, it welcomed me better than the empty apartment ever could.
---
The world around me slowed, as if breathing with my own heartbeat.
I stood there, beneath the pale blue streetlamp, staring at the reflection of myself in the glass of the empty bakery.
The girl staring back... wasn't the same one from yesterday.
Her eyes no longer held that sleepy haze.
They were sharp. Too sharp.
Like blades honed overnight.
I flexed my fingers absentmindedly.
No soreness. No fatigue. No drowsy weight dragging me down.
Just clarity.
Pure, terrifying clarity.
---
Footsteps approached — a soft shuffle on the sidewalk.
I turned, expecting a late-night walker or a drunkard.
Instead, I found him.
A boy. Maybe seventeen or eighteen.
Silver hair that caught the light like strands of wire.
Eyes... not normal.
Not human.
"You're awake," he said simply.
I frowned. "Of course I'm awake. It's the middle of the night."
He tilted his head, studying me like an artist analyzing a half-finished sculpture.
"No," he whispered. "You're truly awake."
Something cold flickered down my spine.
A warning.
"Who are you?" I demanded, taking a step back.
The boy smiled sadly.
"One of the broken. Like you will be."
Before I could respond, he vanished.
Not walked away.
Not ran.
Just... disappeared.
As if the air swallowed him.
---
I stumbled back, heart hammering.
My reflection in the bakery window rippled oddly, as if laughing at me.
"No," I muttered. "I'm just tired. Hallucinating."
But deep down, I knew.
This wasn't exhaustion.
This was something else.
And somehow...
Somewhere deep inside...
I wanted it to be real.
---
The next morning, the world felt... different.
Not visibly.
Cars still honked. Kids still screamed. The baker still opened his shop at six sharp.
But beneath it all, under the surface of normalcy, something pulsed.
Like a second heartbeat in the ground.
I walked to school feeling like a ghost haunting a world that didn't notice I'd died.
At the gates, Emma waved at me.
"Morning, Mari! You look... weirdly awake?"
I laughed, a dry sound. "Didn't sleep. At all."
Emma's eyes widened. "Again?! Girl, you need coffee. Like, a gallon."
I shrugged. "Maybe I don't need sleep anymore."
She laughed, thinking I was joking.
I laughed too, pretending it was a joke.
---
Classes blurred into background noise.
Formulas, dates, diagrams — they floated past me, absorbed effortlessly.
My mind felt like a machine, processing information faster than ever before.
During lunch, I found myself staring at people — really staring.
Seeing them.
The way their bodies sagged slightly. The slow blinks. The micro-yawns they tried to hide.
Sleep.
It ruled them.
And I...
I had broken free.
---
That night, I sat alone in my room, staring at the ceiling.
Not tired.
Not restless.
Simply awake.
And that's when it happened.
A sound.
Soft. Delicate. Like silk sliding across the floor.
I sat up, heart racing.
A small crack appeared on my bedroom wall.
Thin. Almost invisible.
Through it, something peeked.
An eye.
Golden.
Blinking slowly.
It looked at me, and somehow I knew:
This was just the beginning.
---
End of Chapter 1