A Dream Within a Dream
Victor was running across the high bridge.
The cold wind whistled in his ears, the wooden planks beneath his feet trembled with every step, and the dark water below seemed to reach out, ready to swallow him whole. He was running from something, but he couldn’t see his pursuer—the sensation of a presence, a shadow, forced him to quicken his pace. His heart hammered wildly; his lungs burned from the exertion. Adrenaline kept him moving, but fear seeped through every cell. The frigid water below pulled at him with a strange force, as if the abyss itself was seducing him.
The wind wailed like the moans of living beings, and the wooden bridge made sounds—not just creaks, but whispers. A voice, broken and distant, called his name: “Victor...”
He turned around. There was no one. Only the darkness, following him like a living stain.
Beneath his feet, the bridge suddenly groaned, cracked, and a splash echoed from below—as if something massive had stirred in the depths. His heart sank. “Just run...” Victor whispered to himself, but his voice was lost in the roar of the wind.
He looked down. The water was motionless, yet light seemed to pulse within it—a murky green, like eyes. Many eyes. Shadows that weren’t his own spread across the planks beneath him.
Victor took a deep breath and leaped.
The water swallowed him. Frigid. Heavy. Endless. He tried to push himself up, but every movement seemed to drag him deeper. His breathing stopped, his chest ached, and panic seized him.
He felt movement beneath him. Something—or someone—was gliding along his legs. Not like a fish, but like a hand. Fingers, long and cold, wrapped around his ankles. He screamed, but no sound came out. He looked down and glimpsed eyes in the abyss. Many of them. Green. And in them—his own reflection, distorted, disintegrating.
Then, everything went silent. And he woke up.
His bed was dark, his bedroom familiar. But the cold from the nightmare still pulsed in his body. It was as if part of that water had remained in his lungs. The air in the room was humid and thick.
And then he saw it—white smoke, gliding across the ceiling. A figure that seemed to emerge from within himself. The outline of a face, too pale, with a smile that had no lips. His eyes wanted to scream, “Go away!“, but the sound wouldn’t come.
His body was paralyzed, his voice muffled. His muscles refused to obey. This wasn’t just a nightmare—Victor knew he had fallen into a state scientists call sleep paralysis. His brain was awake, but his body was still captive to the REM phase—the moment the organism shuts down movement to prevent acting out dreams.
Only his eyes moved freely. And the more he tried to stir, the more the shadows in the room thickened, flickering like living things, feeding on his helplessness. A scratching sound came from the corner. Something was crawling up the wall. A wind brushed past his face—yet the windows were closed. The shadows gathered into a single point, stretched upward, and for a moment, took the form of a human.
“Victor...” she whispered with his own voice.
“I’m still dreaming...” he realized.
And then he felt a light, warm, and familiar purring.
Hope.
The black cat with emerald-green eyes jumped onto the bed, rubbed against his hand, and placed a velvet paw on his chest as if nudging him. Then, she let out a gentle meow.
The sound—the real, living sound—flowed into his consciousness like a life-saving impulse. It was through Hope that Victor took his first breath of actual air. His heart began to calm, his body moved, and the moment the cat sat on his stomach, he knew: he was truly awake now.
Hope was his anchor—his savior from the abyss of dreams.
After the first sip of coffee, Victor stared out the window.
The city streets were still half-empty, and the early sun lit the rooftops with a warm glow, contrasting with the chaos in his head. After feeding Hope, he headed to his desk. His notebook was open—the place where he recorded his nightmares and sensations, mostly the feeling of helplessness. Insomnia and nightmares had followed him for years; almost every night, he dreamed of something terrifying.
But tonight was different. There was something more. The bottom of the dream had touched him.
“A dream within a dream...” he rasped, shuddering.
Hope finished her meal and began to groom herself. Then, with grace, she walked toward his feet, curled into a ball, and purred softly. She always knew when she needed to be close, and the gesture gave him a small sense of peace.
His phone blinked. A message from his sister, Ana: “Just wondering if everything is okay, call me.”
A moment later, a message from Julie arrived: “Hey, did you have another nightmare? Do you want to talk about it?”
Even divorced, they somehow managed to communicate. Victor smiled faintly: “I’ll be fine.”
The thought of the nightmare and the feeling that this would never end troubled him. In his head, that whisper from the bridge echoed, muffled yet clear: “You haven’t woken up yet...”
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. An idea came to him almost intuitively. His friend from the university—a docent with experience in sleep research—might provide the first answers.
Victor took a shower, dressed quickly, grabbed a croissant, and looked at Hope. She didn’t take her eyes off him, as if saying: “You can do this.”
And he stepped out of the house.
This meeting would be the beginning of a new journey—a path where Victor would face his own fears, seek the truth, and learn to overcome the nightmares that had haunted him for so long.
