It wasn’t darkness this time.

  It was white—white as far as I could see.

  It felt like I’d stepped into a science-experiment montage. Maybe I was the subject. Who knew.

  The whiteness hummed softly, almost kindly—a tone that somehow made my skin crawl.

  A pod enclosed me, smooth walls curving like a ribcage, pulsing faintly with light.

  I could hear my own breath as if it belonged to someone else.

  Welcome, Dreamer Amaya.

  You may now choose your form.

  The voice spoke inside my thoughts—polite, patient, eerily familiar. The same one I’d heard in the dream before.

  Before me, the air rippled.

  A reflection appeared—unfinished, waiting.

  It felt like I was inside a VR setup, and just as the thought formed, text shimmered before me:

  This is your world. Be whatever you want to be.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  That made sense.

  At least in dreams, I could be anything.

  So I thought of everything I wasn’t.

  Bolder. Brighter. Fearless.

  Someone who could walk into a crowd and shine instead of fade.

  The shape obeyed.

  The reflection smiled—easy, careless, alive.

  A bright jacket. White sneakers. Eyes that had never known fear.

  It was still me, at least in outline, and for a heartbeat, I felt proud.

  Then something moved beneath that feeling.

  A weight.

  A shadow of déjà vu sliding cold fingers down my spine.

  I couldn’t place it—only the sense that I’d seen that smile before.

  The reflection tilted its head—my gesture, but not quite.

  Like an echo that remembered the sound, not the meaning.

  Confirmed.

  Form locked.

  The white walls rippled.

  Spectral Surveyor initiated.

  Step into it, Dreamer. You cannot be what you do not wear.

  The air thickened, viscous and warm.

  My avatar’s outline began to peel forward, as if the image itself had skin.

  I reached out—and my fingers vanished into it.

  It felt like slipping into water made of light.

  Cool, but alive.

  The jacket settled on my shoulders.

  The grin pressed itself onto my face like a mask that wanted to stay.

  For a moment, I felt free—weightless, happy—

  as if the smile were mine.

  When it sealed around me, I wasn’t looking at her anymore.

  I was her.

  And somewhere in the hum of the pod, something else whispered—

  a sound just out of reach, like a memory trying to surface.

  A memory that no longer existed.