The Dreams

The dream came again.

Stone walls rose around me, ancient and cold. Candlelight flickered against tapestries I'd never seen but somehow knew, every thread, every faded corner. A fire crackled in a hearth large enough to stand in.

And him.

He stepped from the shadows, dark eyes finding mine with an intensity that stole my breath. Black hair swept back from a face carved by centuries of waiting. Beautiful. Terrifying. Familiar in ways that made no sense.

"You came back to me."

His voice echoed through the dream-chamber. Through me. My soul ached with a recognition I couldn't explain.

"I always come back," I heard myself say.

He reached for me,

I woke gasping.

My apartment in LA was small, ordinary, real. No stone walls. No ancient tapestries. Just my queen bed, my design workstation, the traffic noise filtering through thin windows.

Same dream. Same man. Same ache that lingered long after waking.

I'd had these dreams my entire life. Since childhood, since before I understood what longing meant. A castle on a cliff. A man with dark eyes. A love that felt like drowning.

Psychiatrists called it vivid imagination. Romantics called it past-life memory. I called it a reason to drink more coffee and avoid relationships with anyone whose eyes reminded me of him.

Twenty-seven years of waking up wrong. Of feeling like my real life was happening somewhere else, in a place I'd never been.

I dragged myself to the shower. Let the water run cold until the dream-haze cleared.

By the time I reached my workstation, I was almost functional. Three freelance projects waited, logo redesigns, brand packages, the unglamorous reality of graphic design. Nothing like the castle. Nothing like him.

My phone buzzed. Zara, my best friend and sometime business partner, sent a string of excited emojis followed by: TURN ON YOUR EMAIL RIGHT NOW.

I opened my laptop. Scrolled through the usual client requests and spam.

Then stopped.

Congratulations, Thea Cortez! You've won our grand prize drawing: a two-week all-expenses-paid trip to Romania!

I stared at the screen.

I hadn't entered any contest. I didn't remember signing up for anything.

The email included flight details, hotel reservations, and a full itinerary. A tour of castles, apparently. Historic Romania. Two weeks of gothic architecture and mountain villages.

The attached brochure showed ancient fortresses perched on cliffs. Stone walls. Candlelit halls.

My dream, printed on glossy paper.

I should have deleted it. Should have assumed it was a scam, a phishing attempt, identity theft in waiting.

Instead, I picked up my phone.

"Did you enter me in some contest?" I asked when Zara answered.

"No? Why?"

"I just won a trip to Romania."

"That sounds like a scam."

"I know."

Silence. Then: "You're going to do it anyway, aren't you?"

I looked at the brochure again. At a castle that could have been pulled directly from my subconscious.

"Probably."

"Thea..."

"I know it's stupid. I know there's no logical reason." I closed my eyes. The dream-man's face surfaced immediately, as it always did. "But I need to know."

"Know what?"

"If any of it is real."

Zara sighed. She'd heard about the dreams for years. Had listened to me describe the castle, the man, the aching certainty that I was missing something I'd never actually had.

"At least let me research the company first. Make sure it's legitimate."

"Fine."

But I already knew I was going.

The dreams had been calling me my whole life.

Maybe it was time to answer.