The Dream

Dreams are supposed to fade with the morning.

For one unnamed narrator, however, dreams are the only place that truly feels like home.

Haunted by depression, loneliness, and a growing inability to connect with the waking world, they find solace in a recurring dream where they spend quiet moments with an older man—a gentle, paternal presence whose warmth exists only beyond sleep. Together they walk through parks, feed ducks, and share silences that reality can never offer.

Each awakening is a cruel reminder that comfort is temporary. The dream dissolves, leaving behind an empty room, intrusive thoughts, and an overwhelming desire to return to the place where love feels effortless and pain cannot quite reach.

As the boundaries between dreams and reality begin to blur, the narrator drifts further into isolation, questioning whether staying awake is truly living at all. Torn between a world that demands endurance and another that promises peace, they must confront the fragile line separating hope from surrender.

The Dream is a lyrical psychological novella about grief, mental illness, unconditional love, and the quiet desperation of searching for a place where one finally belongs.