Dreams.

Have you ever felt, upon waking up from a dream, that your room wasn't quite yours? At least, not for a few moments.

As if reality had shifted, and you just got yanked away from it.

As if what your mind showed you while you were fast asleep wasn't just made-up.

Do you believe that dreams can be passed on, from one person to another?

Or that they could predict the future?

Do you think the people you meet in your dreams are real? The strangers you swear you have never seen before?

Many would say that they are simply a recollection of faces you do not remember noticing, but it never feels true, does it?

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I know it doesn't.

In my dreams, I started seeing a man.

A dark silhouette, facing a never-ending sea.

He never turned around. But I knew, deep inside, I had at no point seen anyone like him in my waking life.

He would not speak. No matter the questions I threw at him, the answer was always the crashing of the waves and nothing more.

I didn't dare step closer. I wasn't afraid, not quite. It was something else. Something stronger freezing my legs.

Who was he? Why was he here? What was this place?

No dream should ever feel like this. No dream should ever feel so real, and yet so distant.

Sometimes, I think, the sea would speak to me; I don't know if it was my mind simply playing tricks on me, but amidst the noise I could hear a voice. And somehow, I started to wonder if it could have been him.

Come to me.

It would say, and it would sound like pins and needles, like cold drops of water crashing on your face.

Come to me.

But even then, even with the water beckoning me, I stood still. Because everytime the mere thought of moving forward came to mind, a feeling would overcome me, and grab me by the throat.

Had I done so,

I would have died.