Unfinished Stories
Some dreams feel real.
Some feel impossible.
Khaina Lee thinks they’re both.
Cloud Skylar thinks they’re neither.
Neither expects to fall for the other along the way.
The sky looked wrong, too blue, like someone forgot to lower the saturation. Under the broken clock tower, a woman stood, hair flowing, golden feathers drifting around her like lazy raindrops.
“Bring me to life,” she whispered.
Khaina tried to step closer, but the ground rippled like water. Every step pulled her deeper into the dream until her heart began to race.
Then..
RINGGGG!
Her alarm blared like a marching band in her ear.
“Ah, not again!” She slapped the phone, missed, and knocked it off the nightstand. “Every morning. Every. Single. Morning.”
Her blanket looked like it had survived a tornado. Her hair? A tangled crown of chaos. She stared at the mirror. “Yup. Living proof that humans are ninety percent eyebags, ten percent regret.”
Toothbrush in one hand, phone in the other, she scrolled through her messages.
Kirsten: You awake?
Khaina: Barely. Dream again.
Kirsten: Feathers?
Khaina: Yup. And a talking woman this time.
Kirsten: Girl, you need therapy. Or a nap.
Khaina: Both.
She laughed into the sink, toothpaste foaming at the corners. Even now, the dream clung faintly to her. Like the scent of rain that wouldn’t wash off.
By the time she tied her short hair into a messy bun and grabbed her tote, a half-eaten slice of bread was already hanging from her mouth.
The campus café smelled like burnt caramel and too much ambition. Kirsten was already there, notebook open, looking perfectly unbothered.
“Morning,” Khaina gasped, dropping into the chair across from her.
“Or should I say noon?” Kirsten teased, sipping her latte.
“Universe conspired against me,” Khaina groaned.
“Alarm?”
“Alarm. Plus dream sequel.”
“Part two already?”
“Apparently, my subconscious has a Netflix deal.”
Kirsten smirked. “Your life is a premium subscription, then.”
Khaina flipped her notebook open. Broken clock tower, blue sky, golden feathers. And the woman whispering, Bring me to life.
“Still feels real,” she said.
“Maybe your writer brain just wants a dramatic episode,” Kirsten said, stirring her coffee.
“I’m serious,” Khaina muttered. “It felt real.”
“Everything feels real when you haven’t slept,” Kirsten replied, deadpan.
“Rude,” Khaina whispered, but smiled anyway.
Then she froze.
A golden feather rested on her notebook page. Small. Impossible. Perfectly still.
She blinked once. Twice. It vanished.
“Kirsten I think..”
“You think too much,” her friend said gently, still watching her coffee swirl.
Khaina laughed nervously. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe she just needed sleep.
But her chest tightened, the kind that didn’t feel like nothing at all.
By her first lecture, Khaina’s brain was a cocktail of caffeine and half-remembered dreams. The classroom hummed with sleepy students and the soft click of keyboards.
The professor, a tall woman with glasses too big for her face, gestured at the screen.
“Dreams,” she said, “are unfinished stories. The mind’s way of writing what the heart refuses to say.”
Khaina’s pen hovered above her notebook. Unfinished stories.
The words stuck. Static in her brain.
Her fingers twitched. Feathers, clock towers, floating lights spilled into her notebook. Her short hair fell into her eyes as she worked, trying to make sense of what didn’t make sense.
Kirsten nudged her. “You doodling again?”
“Maybe,” Khaina whispered. “But these, they’re different this time.”
A classmate leaned over. “Wait, are you drawing the same dream every day?”
Khaina flushed. “It’s research. Totally academic.”
Kirsten shook her head, smiling. “Academic my butt. Fine, let’s see where this goes.”
Meanwhile, across campus, Cloud Skylar lounged in the library, pen tapping against his notebook. His messy hair bounced with every movement, a grin tugging at his lips as he typed.
“Let’s see.. REM cycle, neural patterns, emotional correlations.. check, check,” he muttered.
Aki leaned over. “Fifteen minutes typing without a break.”
“Fifteen minutes? That’s basically a vacation,” Cloud grinned.
Then he froze.
A line blinked on his screen.
Bring me to life.
He frowned. “Weird.. I didn’t type that. At least, I don’t remember typing that.”
Aki raised a brow. “Maybe your subconscious is trying to flirt with science.”
“Right? Apparently my thesis flirts with me now,” Cloud said, laughing, but his eyes lingered on the phrase.
Outside the window, something gold drifted past. A feather.
He blinked, squinting. But it was gone.
Aki followed his gaze and saw nothing.
Cloud shook his head, smiling faintly. “Maybe I really do need sleep.”
By the time Khaina returned to her home, the city had dimmed, but her mind buzzed. Feathers, clock towers, and that same whisper echoed through her head.
She opened her notebook, pen hovering. “Okay, let’s just write this down before my brain deletes it.”
She scribbled the dream again. The clock tower, the feathers, the woman.
Then she stopped.
Words were already there.
Bring me to life.
Written neatly in her own handwriting.
Her heart skipped.
“I.. didn’t write this.”
The notebook glowed faintly, as if it were waiting for her next move.
