The world — no, the Dream — had always been so sweet and gentle to him. Des had loved being here from the moment he opened his eyes by that distant stream, awakening into this strange dream world without fear. Time had passed, dark and lit only by the faint lights of the eternal dusk. Yet grass always grew green and lush around him. Flowers in magnificent colors and shapes waited to be admired, and small insects and nimble rodents scurried about through the surreal landscape.

  He had never seen an animal he recognized or could name, although he believed such things were meant for greater people who carried more from the time before the Dream than he ever could. People who had seen clearer visions in the pure crystals after arriving, not merely a green haze and faint sparks. People who had ventured into this mystical realm to become clearer, stronger, and more influential.

  Sometimes he wondered why they walked with a certainty he had never known, a certainty that must feel warm and steady in the chest, as though the Dream itself guided their first steps.

  Even so, the quiet of the growing meadows and fields granted him peace, and he would not have traded his place with anyone. Time had passed since his arrival in the small settlement he now called home.

  An unimaginably long time.

  Moments folded into one another in soft, unbroken patterns that Des rarely tried to separate, a rhythm he had come to accept as part of this world.

  "How long?" he sometimes asked himself, without expecting an answer.

  Des did not need one anyway. He already had everything he wanted.

  Almost everything.

  When he worked the field, pulling the poorly built wooden sleds filled with seeds or farming tools, his eyes fixed on the ground before him and his ears listening to the hush of gentle winds, there was sometimes a longing inside him. That one longing was what made him feel incomplete, what brought a quiet sadness into his thoughts: the desire to see a new plant grow.

  A plant he had never seen before. A plant that would sprout from an unfamiliar seed and rise splendid and abundant, growing into a majestic tree that would defy the passage of time. A tree so rich and green it looked like life itself, the life he had long forgotten. A tree with fruits and branches that covered the sky. Whenever the feeling came, it stirred a faint warmth deep in his ribs, as though the Dream whispered a memory he could almost, but not quite, recall. It was the one mystery he carried that felt older than even this strange world.

  What a sight that would be.

  He never thought about it long enough to picture the tree clearly. Even so, the idea stayed with him, distracting him now and then, an inkling and nothing more. Although Des was content, the thought of the tree always lingered in the back of his mind, scraping at it. He did not know where it came from, though he imagined it had always been there.

  Perhaps from before? Or from within my deepest self?

  After arriving in the small settlement they called Daw (then only a cluster of huts), there had been a time when Des had nearly forgotten this longing, buried under the joy of the small moments Daw brought him. Other things mattered more: building a home and getting to know the few people who already lived there, at the place where only a tiny bonfire stoked their minds.

  There had been only four people when he arrived, and he remembered neither their faces nor their names. Two had left to find their destined other halves; one had gone to see the world; the last had awakened. Des remembered only a distant scream and then silence as he was left behind alone in Daw. Perhaps a bear or a poth had harmed the woman whose face he could no longer recall.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Even so, afterward he was alone. That much he did remember.

  Des recalled it only vaguely, since his mind had been preoccupied with routines and tasks, always working in the fields. He remembered a moment when he first realized no one else would coming out of the huts, the fields stretching out too wide and too quiet around him, as though the Dream itself waited to see what he would do.

  Of course, it did not last long and after that time others settled into the empty huts, and new huts were built to house new people. Some of them left again, some woke, most stayed.

  And so, in the end, he was the only one who vaguely remembered the earlier days of this place they called Daw.

  He was the only one who remembered how they had first carved the furrows in the soft soil and planted the first seeds of rye, rice, and graw, and how the huts became an agricultural community. It had been someone else’s idea (of course), discussed long before he arrived, but he had still been glad to help with both construction and fieldwork near his hut.

  Hunger had been a bitter companion, and although it did not mean waking, it still meant pain. He remembered one afternoon when the work slowed because someone had grown dizzy from lack of food, and how none of them spoke as they shared the last handfuls of grain.

  Yet the hungry days were long past, replaced by the steady rhythm of work and a gentle contentment.

  Des’s thoughts were always a little murky, a little heavy, though his longing reminded him of life (if existence in the Dream could be called life at all). At times he felt the Dream itself held memories he did not, waiting somewhere beneath the soil, part of some deeper Truth in this fantasy world he now lived in without understanding.

  Over time the settlement grew; five huts became twenty. People came, and a few left, again and again, shaping Daw and leaving their traces, whether through a carving on a wall that blurred with time or a small garden that turned into a wild oasis for insects, soon forgotten by most.

  Many people stayed, and a few departed. There was Andelion, the dreamy old woman with silver hair and youthful eyes who often lay in the blooming fields nearby. There was Golko, a young and agile fellow who loved maintaining the huts. There one day was Yorm who tried his best to bring more strucutre into the settlement and its customs.

  And one day there was Brela, who had come from the nearby clearings with her enthusiasm for soothing plants and intoxicating mushrooms.

  He liked her most, since the garden she cultivated beside her hut was both breathtaking to look at and more diverse in plants and herbs than any other around ever had been. She also kept it clean and tended, never letting weeds invade or spoil the sight.

  Sometimes when he walked past, a soft fragrance drifted out, a blend of earth and sweetness that reminded him of the imagined tree.

  They had had gotten to know each othe rover time, and he suspected she had a longing of her own (although he had never dared to ask her such a personal question). There was a quiet distance in her gaze at times, a searching he recognized without understanding, as though she too felt the Dream tug at something within her.

  She had always shown him kindness and warmth whenever she was nearby, even bringing flowers for him and the others, making Daw even more special and beautiful than before.

  Des remembered the first time he truly spoke with her.

  Truly spoke, not merely exchanged small pleasantries. She had planted a tulip, and it was so magnificent that he simply had to tell her.

  To tell her how magnificant her garden was.

  He had wondered, of course, whether that was acceptable. After all, the people of Daw were usually satisfied with everyday tasks, and curiosity was almost considered rude. Even so, she did not scold him but instead asked him about his own thoughts, and he had been very grateful for that. he did have a hard time with her quetion as they broke him from his routine, but stil he admired Brela for her sharp mind and kind soul reaching out to everyone (even him).

  She was his first friend, and whenever the opportunity arose, he cautiously asked her things (though not too much, so as not to annoy her). He remembered being surprised at the warmth that filled him after those conversations, realizing only slowly that this must be what friendship felt like—something he had nearly forgotten existed.

  For a long time she had been the most beautiful and warm presence in Daw (for everyone!), especially for him. He had been so happy to have her around.

  And then Dio had come.

  The young-looking, slender man had seemed like one of those who would not stay long, since he had eyes that wanted to see the world. Des had seen those eyes before, and the people who possessed them had never stayed in Daw for long. He remembered the others only vaguely, not enough to feel anything for them. They had come and then gone again.

  Yet Dio remained.