The sun beams down golden rays as you recline back in the chair. The warmth of the afternoon light feels comforting on your face and the air is filled with the sweet aroma of baking pastries. Beneath you, the seat feels perfect. Soft enough to cradle your body, hard enough to be supportive of your back. You turn your head to the opposite end of the room. Outside of the large bay windows, you can see the perfect mid-summer landscape. A tall tree and a neatly tended vegetable bed dominate the back garden, filling the scene with various shades of red and green. Beyond your property, you can see a hill sloping down gently to where it will eventually meet a brook that quietly flows through the neighborhood.

You sigh contentedly. Everything is as it should be. From the kitchen you hear a voice calling, and a moment later your wife pops her head out from the doorway and asks you something. You can’t quite make out the words she’s saying, but she has such a smile across her face that you can’t help but grin and reply with something sweet. She laughs, returning a joke before beckoning you to stand. Your hand reaches out to grab the arm of the chair, but as you swing your feet down, the ground is suddenly not under you anymore. It happens in an instant, and you fall, jolting awake.

The first thing you become aware of are the familiar walls of your bedroom. Undecorated and without wallpaper, their plain neutral colors have always been a calming influence on you. As you lay half awake and bleary eyed, the sensation of falling fades along with the pounding in your chest. You take deep breaths as practiced. You are no stranger to night terrors these days. It is only after several minutes, only after full wakefulness has entered your body, that your mind wanders back to the dream you were just shaken from. Instinctively, you pat the bed to your left, but you know, even before your hand lands, that it is empty.

She’s gone, she’s been gone for a long time now. Your memories inform you. You were there at the funeral, you saw the coffin go into the earth. You feel tears coming up from behind your eyelids, you try to blink them away. Groggily, you turn over and look at your phone. It is still too early to begin the day, you still need to get some more sleep. You turn back over, close your eyes again, and drift off.

The scene appears as if you never left it. You are on the couch again, enjoying absolute bliss, your wife stands by the doorway smiling. You have no recollection of waking in the middle of the night, you have already forgotten this is a dream. Amber light fills your entire world, the rays are angled shallowly and splash every surface with a wondrous orange glow.

“What would you do to have this back?” Your wife asks in a sing-song voice.

You smile back at her with a dumb look on your face.

“What do you mean?” You call back, confused.

“Oh honey…” She says and shakes her head playfully. “You know it, deep down, you know what happened, you know what’s missing.”

Confusion spreads across your face as you sit up on the couch. The amber light is casting a glare off the objects around the room, you bring up a hand to shield your eyes.

“Is everything okay?” You gently probe.

“…No.” She admits. The corners of her lips turn ever so slightly downwards. “It’s not okay. We had everything, and then… it withered, I withered.”

“Honey, what are you talking about?” You stand up and walk over, quickly throwing your arms around your beloved. Your dreaming mind doesn’t want to recall, yet a small part of your brain still remembers it as clear as day. Her sudden weakness, the years of uncertainty, the cold dark earth, the mud on mahogany.

“I’m not here anymore.” She says, her face now completely buried in her hands. She sounds like she’s weeping. “But this was the best we ever had my dear, what would you do to have this back?”

Your mind still does not want to remember the truth, and as your mouth struggles to reassure her, a sudden light from the bay windows casts into your eyes. You wince, and turn. Squinting, you’re just able to make out the sun’s disk high in the sky. Its bright yellow-white light comes down steeply into the room, clashing against the warm, amber rays pouring in from the East.

Your stomach flips over, and something in your brain clicks about the direction of the strangely orange light. You’ve lived in your house for years now, and the bay windows face west. They have always faced west.

You whirl your head around as soon as you understand the mismatch: the sun is in the West, but the amber light floods in from the East. Hairs on your neck and arms shoot up straight. Suddenly, you are aware of something beyond the Eastern windows. A subtle presence that has been steadily getting closer, and now you suddenly feel it shift through the glass. As your head fully articulates and the windows come into view, a shrill tone pierces the world, jolting you awake.

…………………………………………………

You wake up screaming, it is a sharp, shrieking sound, one you haven’t made since you were ten years old. The echo hangs in the air for several seconds. The Eastern facing windows of your bedroom are fully curtained, and the light that leaks through is bright yellow-white. You slump back down into bed and fumble for your phone, silencing the whining alarm.

The day has become overcast by the time you make it to your office, a squat three story box built in the 80’s sitting in a sparse business park. A chilly breeze blows across the parking lot and you pull your autumn jacket tighter around your body.

At your desk things are the same rote repetition as they always have been. The coffee tastes too sour, the papers pile onto your desk without end, and the din of meaningless office chatter relentlessly pounds into your skull. By lunch, you've already developed a splitting headache behind your eyes. You let out a defeated groan upon seeing the mountain of work still to be done and stumble up from your seat. As you are walking to the elevator, deliberating between a quick snack or a full lunch, you see it again.

There is a door. It is one of a dozen identical copies littering the hallway, except for the fact that this one is open. You pause as you pass by, something catching your eye. Directly in view of the open door, placed below a small window with the blinds pulled down, is a glass vase containing a single flower. The petals are a flaming combination of red and gold, the splash of color startling against an otherwise gray and muted office. But perhaps the most astonishing thing is that through the slats of the window blinds, rays of dazzling amber light pour down onto the dazzling plant.

You knit your eyebrows together, almost unconsciously, and look back down the hallway. The large window at the other end of the office still shows an overcast sky with a light drizzle. No possibility of sun. You turn back to the open door, perplexed. The sight is still there, a brilliant, fire-like lily, sitting underneath inexplicable light.

Cautiously you approach, peaking your head into the room. It looks like an abandoned office, an unused desk and heaps of boxes are piled against the opposite wall. The carpet is still a remnant from before the renovation five years ago; the aesthetic of the room looks almost nostalgic. Your trailing hand shuts the door with a soft click and your feet quietly make their way to the window.

Tentatively you reach out, almost unsure of the reality of the whole situation, and touch the blinds. They’re solid, hard plastic textured with fake wood grain. You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding in and try to move the slat. It doesn’t budge. You pull a little harder. It still doesn’t move. You take a step back, vexed, and stare at the window more carefully, looking for a string or chain to raise the blinds. Instead, you realize with a start that the slats are a single solid piece. The window has been layered over with an immovable shutter on the inside, the panel bolted to the wall with large screws.

Yet the light still shines through. Its color is deep, almost like that of honey, and in that illumination, the intricate red patterns on the flower almost seem to come alive. You bend down and gently stroke a single petal. Its surface is clean, immaculate even, free of the dust that coats the rest of the room. You frown, and as you stand back up, a tiny sound wafts by your ear. It could have been an errant gust from the air conditioning, it could have been a footstep outside. But in that moment, to your ears, it sounds like a voice, a voice that you have never forgotten.

“You could have it back” Your wife says in a tiny whisper.

A shiver runs down your spine and you are suddenly aware of how alone you are in this vacant corner of the building. Then, you feel it again, a presence just beyond the plastic shutter and window glass. It’s not quite a fully formed sensation, but you instinctively know that there is something there, something in the light itself.

You quickly stride to the door, maintaining as much composure as you can, and push into the hallways before bolting towards the elevators.

It is close to dusk by the time you leave the building for the night. The early sunsets of winter are already apparent, and most of your coworkers have already taken off to make the most of the dwindling daylight. Walking through the hallway, curiosity trumps your caution, and you sneak a peek at the strange office again. It is immediately clear that whatever force had its grasp over the small room is now gone. The shutters are dark, the vase is empty, and a thick layer of dust covers everything uniformly. You shiver at the sobering sight and quickly make your way out of the building.

…………………………………………………

The night passes quickly, and before long, you are in bed and drifting off to sleep once more. In your dream, you find yourself seated at a table. Your wife sits across, empty plates between, a satisfied feeling within your stomach. It is later in the evening and the real sun is setting below the hill, past the bay windows. Yet the same amber light still pours in from the East, unchanging in its angle and brilliance. The strange radiance illuminates a house that still looks mostly like yours, but has had its opulence greatly enhanced. The ceiling is now higher, and the light tan wood panels have been replaced with a rich, dark, walnut and ebony. Your wife did always talk about redecorating in a Gothic style. In fact, the entire dining room looks far better than it ever has. Its size, its sophistication, its luxury surpass anything you ever dreamed of affording.

“We could have had this, and much more.” She says from across the table, smiling.

“What are you talking about? We do have this!” You laugh and gesture at the newly styled walls. Your wife purses her lips and shakes her head.

“You won’t just be getting back the things you lost, but everything you never had to begin with.” She says. Her tone has suddenly turned somber.

Your mind once again tries to suppress the memories from the waking world.

“You need to remember, so you can bring me back, please!” Her tone is pleading now. You rub the bridge of your nose. Something is very much not right, images flood into your head. An ominous day, a neat rectangular hole in the hillside, everyone dressed in black.

“Just find me…” Your wife says, grabbing your hand. Her flesh is warm, strangely warm, warmer than any human hand should be. “Bring me out of the dark and put me in the light again, and then we’ll have all of this back!”

“You- you we’re right…” You reply, awareness coming to you. “You’re not here, you’re dead. You can’t come back!”

“Shhhhh…” Your wife strokes your hand, her fingers are like warm water in a blissful bath. “Of course I can!” She pleads. “I’m just somewhere else right now, but you can bring me home!” Her words slip into your ear as no words have done before and lodge themselves somewhere within your skull. “You just need to pull me out of that rotten box and lay me in the light! Bring my ring and think of us together, that's all it takes! I’ll hear you and come back, that's my promise.” She stares into your eyes. The amber light from behind you reflects off her irises and for a moment, her gaze is positively radiant, twin suns ablaze at the center of a beaming smile.

You are waking up now, most of your mind has realized this is a dream, and awareness tugs at the edges of your vision.

“I can’t!” You croak out, unable to lie to the image of your beloved’s face. “I can’t just…dig up your body!” The scene is already fading, the fancy decorations and furniture blurring into nothing. Your wife looks disappointed by your answer, melancholy creeps across her disintegrating features before she is gone entirely and only the rich amber light remains.

You open your eyes slowly, and for a moment you believe you are still dreaming. Orange rays still flood your vision, but you feel the pillow under your head and cautiously roll to the side. Rubbing your face, you see that somehow, a single stray beam of light has pierced through a hole in your blackout curtains and landed precisely on your face. There is a gust of wind as your heater turns on. The curtains shift and block out the errant ray for good. Groaning, you stumble to the window and pull the curtains aside to fully let in the morning light. To your shock, the sky is still pitch black, day break is still hours away.

…………………………………………………

Several weeks pass without the sepia tinted dreams visiting you again. Those weeks are monotonous, but good. You still see your wife in the dreams you do have, but there, she doesn’t speak to the present you, instead your conversations with her are always about the happenings in that specific dream. She never mentions that she is dead, and you never realize you are sleeping. The sun’s light is always a brilliant yellow-white. By the end of the month, you have nearly forgotten about the strange nightmares.

Then one morning your phone rings, just before you leave for work. It’s your boss. He tells you that the company hasn’t been doing so well. Sales are down and costs are up. After a long deliberation, the faceless executives in the big city have decided that your location is superfluous and will be shuttered immediately. Your boss tells you to still come in to collect your things, and fill out the severance forms. Your knees grow numb as you stash the phone back in your pocket. You feel bile rising in your throat for the entire trip to that squat, beige office.

Half a week goes by and things are not looking any better. All the jobs in your field no longer pay enough to afford the mortgage on the house, the loan was taken out with two people in mind. You’ll have to move, you’ll have to find a new job, you’ll have to leave behind the broken pieces of what should have been your paradise. Now it's back to the big city where you worked after college, or back to the town you grew up in, or perhaps to another suburb like this, in a small apartment by the edge of town. Distress and despair have nearly consumed you by the time you fall into a fitful sleep that night.

The amber glow that greets you when you close your eyes is a great shock. Anticipation has already begun to course through your blood as you scan the room. You’re no longer in the dining room, in fact it doesn’t seem like you are in your house at all. The space before you is a great foyer, at least two stories tall and accentuated with the finest dark wood decorations. Behind you is a door with a great window above. The golden rays pour through it like a waterfall. Starting at your feet and spanning the entire atrium, is a grand staircase with elaborate banisters opening onto a wide walkway. And at the center of it all, shining like a second sun, is your wife. She leans on the railing and smiles playfully down at you.

“Do you like it?” She says, her voice booms from the second floor effortlessly.

“Where- what is this?” You ask, your voice sounds so small.

“It’s our house!” She calls down. “After all the renovations were done! Don’t you remember the floor plans I showed you?”

Your brain pulls out a hazy recollection of the sketches and blueprints your wife pinned to her cork-board. Hopes for years later, dreams that never came to pass.

You stare dumbfounded at the immense scope of it all, and your wife laughs. She takes a fanciful twirl along the banisters before taking a leaping step and flying down the stairs. Her large dress billows behind her, catching the sun in its folds and fluttering out like a great plume of living gold. A moment later, she stands before you and throws her arms over your shoulder. She leans in, her lips pressing to your ear.

“I know things are hard for you right now…” She coos softly. “But it doesn’t have to stay that way. We can be together again, you don’t need to face that future alone. At the very least…just come visit me before you throw everything away, please.” She pulls away and flashes you a smile.

Once again, your dreaming mind does not remember that she is dead.

“Wha-“ You begin to say confused, but she puts a finger to your lips.

“Hush…” She whispers, eyes aflame with fiery orange. “Your waking self will know what I mean. Put me in the light and think of those golden days we had together.” And with that she slightly pushes you on the nose tipping you backwards. You trip and fall, plummeting through the floor before awakening with a start.

…………………………………………………

Dawn has barely broken when you open your eyes, and true to her promise, your wife’s words echo in your ear. You groggily make it to the bathroom and rub your face. Bags under your eyes betray the exhaustion that has plagued you for days, a stupor that cannot be erased by sleep. You huff out a breath. Maybe it is finally time to get closure on this, stop these nightmares for good and move on.

Walking back into the bedroom, you start to rummage through the nightstand. Her ring is exactly where you left it, neatly nestled in its silky box, the same one you bought all those years ago. A few minutes later, you are backing your car out of the garage into the pre-dawn gloom. A small shovel clangs in the trunk. You’re not too sure why you grabbed it, you certainly don’t plan on using it.

The drive out to the cemetery takes just under an hour. It is a small piece of land, but picturesquely located on a quaint hill overlooking the main road and a meadow beyond. You pull onto the gravel path and gently crest your car up to the gate. By some miracle, the chain link fence is not locked. You ignore the visiting hours sign and pull through. You’ll be gone before they know.

Your wife’s plot is just past the entrance, underneath the shadow of a great old oak. Her headstone is still nearly pristine, a rectangular slab of marble, an epitaph visible in gilded letters. Killing the engine you sit for a moment. Her ring suddenly feels heavy in your pocket. Still, there's nothing for it. You gather up your courage and step out into the morning.

Petrichor fills your nostrils from the dew. Behind you, the sun has already crested the tree line, and the Eastern half of the sky is a vibrant, cloudless blue. As you survey the area, you realize that every tree you lay eyes on still has its summer coats of green leaves. The air is also impossibly warm for mid-November day, feeling more like a day in July. Somehow, the yearly churn of the seasons has simply passed this place by, leaving it in an eternal summer. The grass is slick under foot as you slowly make your way to the headstone, and soon you are standing near the base of the gnarled tree and right above your wife’s grave.

“Hey Honey.” Your voice is small and awkward to your ears. “I-I remember what you said to me in that dream this morning. You finally finished building our house! It's really beautiful, I can’t believe how it looks.”

Cold hard soil gives no response.

“Uh, but yeah. I’m here to see you, just like you asked. I’m…I don’t know. You’re right, things are hard right now, really damn hard, and I don’t know how to get through all of this by myself. I think I saw the place you’re in now, I don’t know if that’s heaven or what, but…please show me a sign that you’re with me, just like you said.” You do a poor job at stifling the tears, before placing the small silver ring on the headstone and waiting.

Wind blows gently, the leaves rustle and somewhere a bird chirps. But there is no reply from the earth. You sigh, and let your tears hit the trampled grass underfoot. It was too early in the day to even get any flowers. You sniffle hard and pick the ring up from the headstone. But just as you begin to turn, a piercing beam of amber light streaks across the hilltop and lands on her grave. You pause for a second in surprise. Slowly, you trace the ray across the grass, through the branches that touch the ground, and into a hazy glare somewhere beyond the distant tree line. You turn back and look to the sky. The sun is distinctly behind you, and its illumination is bright white, tinted with subtle tones of blue and yellow.

The blood in your veins runs cold, your legs suddenly feel very weak, and nausea surges into your stomach. Yet before you can flee, something happens on the ground that catches your eye. A dark patch of grass, withered brown from lack of sun, begins to unfurl. Over the span of a single minute, the blades regain a vibrant green color and stand themselves up, mottled decay and insect bites receding until each shoot is whole and perfect again. You rub your eyes and cast your gaze across the hillside. Everywhere the light has touched, you see grass growing back right before your eyes. Patches of dark soil are spouting blades of verdant green, even small saplings, cut by blade or wind, are growing anew towards the sky.

In utter astonishment, you watch until the plants have perfectly filled the outline of golden light. Then, the beam seems to shift, it momentarily flickers, but immediately returns through a different gap in the leaves, this time casting a jagged rectangle of amber on the right beside your beloved’s grave. It is almost perfectly sized for the body of a single person. Her instructions from your dream ring in your ears louder than before:

“Bring me out of the ground. Bring me into the light.” In that moment, something in your mind gives in. The days of despair, The weeks of stress, a whole year of grief breaks the floodgates of your reason. There is only one, irrational, impossible thought left in your brain as you turn to grab the shovel: You have to see her again.

Clods of dirt fly over your shoulder and onto a growing heap of sod. Your shovel bites into the soil that was thrown there by the hands of her family. Wiping the sweat from your face, you frantically look up and make sure the light hasn’t vanished. The rectangle of illuminated grass remains, every blade in the lighted patch more radiant and emerald than anything else around it. You return to digging with the desperation of a cornered beast and before long, you hear steel chipping into wood. Clearing the last of the dirt away, you stand to the side and heave with all your strength. The heavy wood groans, then creaks, and finally gives way at last. You scramble for your shovel and prop up the heavy lid. Only then do you stand up and stare down into the open tomb.

Decay has not been gentle to her features. Rot and desiccation have all taken their toll, and her once beautiful face is now nothing more than withered flesh, eaten through by the worms. The dress they buried her in is likewise damaged beyond recognition, its colors and patterns long devoured by the scavengers in the soil. Your heart sinks at the sight. The last time you laid eyes on her, the illusion of life had been momentarily preserved by the mortician’s hand. As she was lowered into the box, it wasn’t so hard to believe that she could open her eyes and rise from it. But now, she’s nothing more than a bag of bones, food for the worms. A small piece of your mind screams out its reason, of course she looks like that, decay was meant to be. It yells for you to snap out of your delusion, and to leave her empty husk in the ground where it belongs.

But just then, a glimmer of amber flashes off your skin and lands across a withered finger on her right hand. Even in its diffuse and dim state, the light seems to seep into her dead flesh and revivify it. Months of decomposition are undone in mere moments as her finger regains its color and shape, a tiny impossibility staring right back at you in broad daylight.

You don’t hesitate for even a second longer. Before you know it, you’re cradling her mummified skeleton, lifting it from its final resting place and throwing the corpse onto the soil, into the light. Amber rays completely envelop her withered features, as steam begins to hiss from her form. For one awful moment, you are afraid the fragile remains will burst into flame, but they do not. Clambering from the empty pit, you stand in front of the body and fulfill the last of your wife’s instructions. You close your eyes and remember. You remember all the sunny afternoons, the real ones you had before her sickness arrived. You remember the excitement of laying plans to rebuild the house, the wonder of creating a castle all to yourselves. And you remember the endless possibilities you had. A whole lifetime stretched out before the two of you, the whole world for the taking. Now, in your mind’s eye, she is standing atop that same grand staircase as your dreams. She laughs and begins to descend, reaching out a hand as she goes. Then as she leaps off the last step, her fingers reach out to interlace yours and you suddenly feel warm flesh brush against your hand.

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Your eyes snap open. There before you, sitting on the grass, smiling as if no time had passed since that golden afternoon, is your wife, alive and joyous once again. Her skin is radiant, more beautiful than you remember it, her smile brighter than anything you’ve ever seen. She reaches out for the ring in your hand and slips it on. You are dumbstruck, tears flow freely down your face as you watch her rise, rise from the grassy patch and stretch her cramped limbs. She lets out a wonderful sigh and shakes out her dress. The dingy burial gown is no more, the light has burned that away too, leaving her robed in a glittering sun-dress.

“Honey, I’m home.” She says sweetly, before pulling your tear streaked face into a warm embrace. You want to welcome her back, to say how much you’ve missed her after all this time, but your breath is rattling and all you manage to choke out is a quiet sobbing sound.

“Hush now, it's over.” She coos and soothes your back. You take a deep breath in her hug. She smells nothing like the damp and rancid tomb you just pulled her from. Scents you don’t even recognize perfume her body, yet all of them evoke the ambiance of a beautiful glittering dawn.

“…-so long.” You manage to cough out. “I needed you back for so long…”

“I know.” She replies softly. “I’m here now. Let’s go home and you can tell me all about it.” You sniffle and nod, picking yourself up and gesturing to the car.

“Go ahead, I have to fill this in first, I’ll-I’ll just be a few minutes.” You gesture at the ruined, open grave. She nods and slides into the passenger seat of your car. You stare at her for a few more seconds after she’s in the door, just to make sure that she’s still real. Then you spin around and grab the shovel. You work even faster the second time around, there’s too much at stake to waste another second looking at an empty coffin. Your hands become a blur as you fling dirt back into the vacant hole with manic fury, and in no time at all, the coffin is reburied under six feet of soil. Without a second look, you scramble into your car and gun the engine, taking off down the road and towards your home.

…………………………………………………

Your wife is jubilant on the drive back, she laughs at old jokes from years ago and cracks a few of her own. The mid-morning sun is strangely tinted gold as it filters into your car, keeping the glimmering flame alive in her eyes. She is so dazzling you almost forget how to drive a few times. But it is early on a weekend and there are few other cars on the road anyways. In seemingly no time at all, you are home. Stepping out of the car, the contrast between the two of you couldn’t be more striking. She waltzes out into the sun, wearing a dress who’s colors match the splendid day and you slough from your seat, looking more like the one who was pulled from a coffin.

You groan as the muscle aches begin to set in. You’re not so young anymore. Taking a hasty look around, you quickly usher your wife into the house. You can’t let anyone else see her alive, there would be too many questions and you’re not too sure how to answer them yourself. But after a quick shower, you finally place your body on the couch and let out a contented sigh. Your wife is by your side almost immediately, in her hand, she’s carrying a plate of sandwiches. The tomatoes taste sweeter and richer than anything you've had in months. It takes minutes for you to scarf down the plate, and only then do you turn to her and begin to explain.

“I know…the house is a mess, and well, the job is gone and soon the house will be as well… I didn’t want you to see this, how far I’ve fallen from our dreams, but I-”

Once again, she reaches out and takes you into her embrace.

“Oh honey, I know what you've been going through!” Her voice is so gentle and kind. A dim orange glow permeates your closed eyelids. “I know about all of it. You tried so hard and have done so much already, you don’t have to worry anymore.” Something in your gut flips for a moment and doubt enters your mind. You pull away from your beloved and look her in the face. Your wife was never a miracle worker, and she wasn’t one to over promise.

“You…” You reply gently. “You’ve been…gone for quite a while. We don’t have any savings left, I can barely afford food. Our dream house, we’re going to have to sell it.” You break the news to her.

“Oh…I don’t think we’ll need to go that far…” She pouts with a sarcastic exaggerated face. A shiver shoots down your spine. Your wife was optimistic and joyful, but never this flippant, and for a terrible moment, the impossibility of what has occurred this morning looms over your head. You suddenly don’t recognize the person behind that familiar face.

Your wife seems to sense your distress and instantly replaces her expression with a sanguine smile.

“Sorry honey, it's been a long time, I’m still adjusting to being back here. I know it's going to be hard, and things have gotten a lot worse since I was here, but I really think we can put it back together without giving up on that dream.”

Your heart settles at her honesty and everything seems alright again. The early afternoon light is still a bright white hue and you close your eyes taking in a deep breath. You feel light headed, perhaps from the exhaustion, perhaps from the fact you really have gone mad. You don’t know, but at that moment, staring back at your wife’s smile, a smile you thought you would never see again, you feel just fine.

…………………………………………………

It is not until late at night when something unsettles you again. You are getting ready for bed when you see a dim light shining from the guest room across the hall. You know your wife is in there, so you’re not too shocked, but its color is strange. Instead of the bluish hue of a screen, or the white of an electric bulb, you see the flickering amber glow of a candle flame. Curiously, you poke your head into the room. Your wife is seated on a bed, facing a window with the curtains drawn to reveal the pitch black night. She caresses the flame of the candle gently and turns her head to you in the dim flickering flame. Despite the darkness, you see her features perfectly, almost as if there is another glow coming from just beneath her skin.

“Good evening.” She says warmly. “Just giving us some light, in these dark hours.”

You cock an eyebrow playfully and flip on the light switch. The LED bulbs inserted into the ceiling turn on instantly.

“There!” you say and plop down in a couch near her. She doesn’t move, and continues to stare at the candle. For the second time that day, the enormity of your situation hits you. Your beloved, who was genuinely a corpse in the ground mere hours ago, is now sitting here healthy and alive with red blood pumping through her veins. She is a thing that cannot be.

“In my dreams for the past few weeks, I’ve been seeing you in a house, filled with light,” You explain slowly. “But… I don’t know if that was real or not. Was it dark? Where you were before?” This is the first time you’ve asked her a question about the great beyond. Your own heart jumps slightly upon hearing the words spill from your own lips.

“No it wasn’t.” Your wife replies matter-of-factly. “The opposite, actually, it was full of light, more light than you’ve ever seen. It’s this world that’s quite dark by comparison.” She cups the candle flame and gently blows on it. The small tongue flares for a moment before settling down again. “…But it won’t be like this for too long. Soon the light will be back.” She flashes you a smile.

“Are you sure you’re okay? Do you want to get some sleep?” You ask again, with increasing concern.

“Yes, I’m okay, still just…adjusting.” She says the last word with uncharacteristic difficulty. “But I will be fine, just turn off the light and let me sit, I’ll join you in a bit.”

“Alright.” You sigh and flip the switch off. But as you turn to head towards bed, she blows on the candle again. This time, the shine in her eyes grows along with the flame until the entire room looks like it is bathed in the blinding luminance of a crimson sunset. Then the light vanishes and she is alone in the dark with a tiny flame again.

…………………………………………………

You get no sleep that night. As soon as your eyes close, they open again to daylight. The entire curtained window is now backlit by a warm brilliance. You squint and hastily check the time. 5 am, far too early for sunrise on a November day like this. Your heart quickens in your chest and you rush to tear the curtains back. Shockingly, there is a light rising over the East. But it is not the sun. It’s too small, its size more akin to that of a star, yet it burns up the whole horizon in hues of red and purples.

“The light is back.” Your wife says excitedly from her side of the bed. Leaping from it, she tiptoes over to the window, drinking in the uncanny scenery of the dawn that came too soon, then dances out of the room with an ecstatic spring. You are not so happy. Staring at the false sunrise and the nameless glow, you realize that something is deeply, cosmically wrong. What happened yesterday was not just a fluke of the universe, but the start of something much larger in scope. Something that you no longer have any control over.

It takes several hours for the sun to catch up with the false dawn, and by the time the true solar disk peaks over the horizon, the amber light has been pouring into through your windows for hours. Orange gives way to a pure white glare and the eerie, sepia tinted star is blotted out by the blazing sun. Your wife is hard at work long before the real sun comes up. As you stumble around the house in a daze, averting your gaze from the inexplicable, pre-dawn glare, you hear her in the kitchen, then in the basement, then in the living room. She seems to be everywhere at once.

Sometime around midday, you come downstairs and see that she has found the old house plans from the basement and propped them up again in the living room. Before her, is spread the dreams you thought had been dead and buried. But now the person that has returned from the dead, is trying to resurrect those hopes as well.

“Wow honey…” You exclaim looking at the plans. “Isn't it a bit too early for this? I-I still don’t know how we’re going to get through this month…” You sheepishly comment. You hate to burst her bubble so soon after she’s back, but the situation really is dire, you need her to understand.

“I’ve told you, you don’t have to worry about it any more.” She smiles back. “I’ll take care of it all, and give us back the life we always wanted.”

You want to protest, but your heart’s not there. Instead you smile and turn away, what’s the harm in letting her indulge for a few days?

The strange star makes its return by sunset. As the last rays of sunlight vanish, a creeping, familiar light reignites in the East. The false star hangs just above the horizon, unmoving for many hours until it finally fades away deep into the night. You’ve quickly realized that there is something off about the light it produces, The beams flicker and cast impossible shifting patterns onto the walls it lands on. Shapes that hint at something moving in the heart of the radiance, something huge. You do your best to shut yourself in a darkened bedroom until then the last dancing rays disappear completely.

Exiting your sanctuary, you find that your wife has once again put herself on the bed in the guest room, but now she has surrounded herself with a small forest of flickering candles sat in dishes and cups. Her luminous gaze is locked on the eastern facing window, her mouth upturned in a permanent grin. You slowly approach and peak your head in, knocking gently on the door frame. She turns around slowly, her smile widening as her eyes land on you.

“Good evening dear!” She says with a bit too much glee in her voice. “Just keeping the light, until it returns again.” You smile back and nod before quickly pulling your head from the door. You amble back to the bedroom with an indistinct apprehension hanging over your head. Given the color of the candles and the way their shadows danced, you are now pretty sure what your wife is waiting for, and you are not in the mood to see it again.

And so, the days go by. The false star appears each morning, hangs motionless before the sun banishes it away. At night, the East is lit aflame again for hours until the inky blackness of the sky finally smothers the dread flame. But each day, the star takes longer to kill. It tracks the sun well into midday, and only the darkest midnight sky can extinguish it. Meanwhile, your wife’s work has grown ever more feverish. Hours now, spent on her plans and drawings.

Yet, despite the creeping strangeness of it all, you find yourself feeling happier and happier. Somewhere along the way, you’ve stopped questioning the small discrepancies anymore. Dinner is always served on time, a heady mix of fresh vegetables and tender meats, despite neither of you leaving the house for groceries. The bills have stopped coming, and yet, water and electricity still flow in everyday. It is as if the world has been paused in stasis. The initial shock of the new status quo is rapidly subsumed by the ease and comforts. Your wife’s candle lit episodes become just a strange quirk of life, and even the inexplicable, incomprehensible cosmic changes to the sky itself become dull routine. Life is just so carefree, you feel as if an eternity would still not be enough to satisfy you.

You want to believe that this is paradise, that this is the rightfully appointed reward for your suffering. But the nagging voice of reason always returns, screaming in the dead of night for you to get out, to see baited snare for what it is and run for your life.

…………………………………………………

Then, two days before the solstice, it happens. After a long isolation in the evening, you emerge into the hallway to a truly perplexing sight. Your wife has been busy setting up a maze of candle stands across the entire house. In every corner of every room now stands a thin wrought iron pole, each crowned with a lone wax-fed flame. All the other lights in the house have been turned off. Confused, you rush to your wife’s side, who is once again sitting on a bed, staring at the night through a darkened window.

“Honey…What is all of this? What have you been doing all day?” You try to broach the subject carefully at first, but that haunting feeling of strangeness returns. A part of your brain now screams that this seated figure cannot be your wife.

“I’m keeping the light.” She answers, repeating the same thing she’s always uttered before. “Until it returns again.”

You sit down beside your wife on the bed and cradle her hand in yours. Her skin is still abnormally hot, almost like a sunburn.

“If something happened… out there, after you…died, you can let me know. We can work through whatever this is together” You reassure. Your wife nods slowly.

“You’ve seen that place too, a part of it.” She finally responds. “In your dreams, I showed it to you many times.” Sepia glow flashes in your mind when she mentions the dreams, images seared directly into your brain that cannot be forgotten.

Your face contorts in discomfort of the memory and your wife almost seems to smile at the sign of recognition. Bringing the small flame up to her lips, she takes a deep breath and blows. The flame flares like before, but this time it's not just one light. Almost as if united by a single, unseen force, every candle, in every corner of the house roars. Their flames become brighter and brighter until the inside of every room looks like sunrise again.

And then you see it. Out the window, far beyond the horizon. The false star flickers to life for a moment, its dazzling rays bathe every surface in amber for a single instant, before vanishing into nothingness again.

“It’s very close now.” She says as the lighting returns to normal. “Soon, the light will become one with the sun. Then it will be perfect, forever.”

You shiver and rise from the bed.

“Sounds great honey!” You lie, stepping back towards the door. “I can’t wait! But…I’m really tired tonight, I think I’ll call it here, you can take this room, stay up as long as you need.” Your wife nods with a broad smile on her face, then blows on her candle again.

You shut the door right before the poisoned light fills the room again.

…………………………………………………

When day finally breaks on the eve of the solstice, you have shaken off the comfortable lethargy. You can no longer stay inside and pretend, you need to see what has really happened to the world outside. You need to know if all of this is real, or if you have truly lost your mind. For the first time in weeks, you put on your shoes and coat, only calling out to your wife as you open the front door.

To your surprise, she doesn’t protest, and only wishes to be safe on your walk. Cautiously, you shut the door behind you, and after calmly strolling to the end of your street, you take off into a sprint around the corner.

It is noon, the only time left where the amber star is completely consumed by the sun, and in the clean daylight, you begin to feel like a living person again. Sprinting as far as you can from the house, your breath hangs as steam in the chilly air. You can see snow on the ground, and the bright blue sky opens to freedom above you. A wave of clarity washes over you, the world is still here, the cold air is still real enough to sting. You relish in the pain for a moment, the sharpness dissolving the malaise that has engulfed your soul. You turn to the heavens and let out something between a cry and holler, the triumphant sound echoing off the desolate street. As you walk, your mind begins to clarify, the dullness honed away by the biting cold. And by the end of your short circuit around the neighborhood, you have half convinced yourself that the past month has been one long delusion and that your wife is still a lifeless corpse, peacefully resting in her grave.

Then as you approach your home, another thought occurs: you can finally end this delusion here and now. Perhaps you just need verification from someone else. You walk past your own house and continue across the street to the door of a neighbor. You and your wife were good acquaintances with them in the years past. Surely they will set the story straight.

Your stomach drops with sickness before you even make it to the door bell. For out from the gaps of the window curtains and beneath their door, amber light spills out in a hundred tiny slivers, piercing the crisp winter air with a sickening dull warmth. You stumble back and careen your head around. To your horror, as you closely examine the facade of each house, every single window is tainted by sickly orange light, worming its way out of every nook and cranny.

The undeniable reality of your situation crashes back into you. The fear that you’ve secretly harbored for weeks finally is beyond doubt. The thing that came back out of the grave is not your wife, it cannot be. What walks your house now is the same thing that poisoned your dreams with blinding sepia warmth, the same thing that hides and writhes in every glint of amber light, the same thing that has infected the very world around you. A wracking shudder convulses through your entire body, and a single thought possesses your whole mind: You need to escape.

…………………………………………………

By nightfall that day, your plan has crystallized. Dinner is finished with a fake smile, and before too long, the false star finally flickers out in the sky. From your dark and peaceful sanctuary, you count the footsteps as the thing wearing your wife’s face retreats to the guest bedroom. You wait until you hear the sound of a lock clicking shut before diving into your closet. You pull out the suitcase you hastily put together that afternoon. You have all your documents, two changes of clothes, and your toothbrush. Venturing into the candle lit hallway, you carefully avoid the metal poles, their flames flare like miniature stars, your skin feels numb and warm wherever their light grazes.

You make it to the car without any incident and quietly stash your bag away. Now in the dead of night, the true extent of the corruption is apparent. From every window, in every house on the street, rich honeyed light pours into the night sky. A hundred different tainted sunsets, all shining their poison into a darkened world.

You gun the engine as hard as you can and speed away. It takes a long time to exit the subdivision and turn onto a large street. Yet everywhere you look, the light is still present. Pouring from houses, stores and office buildings. Each door is a new portal into a warm, insipid, bliss. The intersections are empty and you blaze past them without pause, the entire town has already been subsumed, there are no people on the road anyways. After what feels like an eternity, you break out of the dense forest and onto the interstate overpass.

Below you, dozens of cars rocket under the bridge, their headlights a pale blue white. You breathe a sigh of relief and loosen your grip on the wheel. Salvation lies before you, the way out of this insidious nightmare and towards freedom, a new life. Your heart soars for a moment, and you stamp the gas pedal flat, racing towards the entrance.

Your car tires screech to a halt mere meters from the on ramp. Your mood has suddenly soured and curdled seconds away from freedom. Preemptive regret snakes its way into your heart. You slump into your seat and can suddenly see the rest of your life laid out before you.

If you get on that highway, you will leave behind everything you have ever built. You will no longer have a house, you will no longer have a job, you will no longer have anything to your name, and above it all, you will lose your wife a second time. Staring out into the dark, past the gathering clouds, you open your mouth and let out a whimper. The long, cold road, which seemed like salvation mere moments ago, are now signs of your damnation. Loneliness, desolation, soul shattering monotony, endless debt. All of it will haunt you anew, never to leave your side for as long as you live. You have fought so much, given up everything, and now you stand to lose it all again in exchange for momentary escape back into a hopeless world.

A voice from a dream surfaces in your mind: What would you do to have this back?

The amber warmth beckons slowly from behind. Your dream home, your wife, the peaceful, carefree life you always wanted, preserved in an eternal golden glow. There is nothing asked in return, for you have already suffered and grieved and sacrificed your all. In that perfect world, you will be compensated, and all things will be made right. You take a deep breath. Your mind sees clearly now, there was never a real choice at all. Shifting into forward gear, you spin through a great U-turn on the overpass and speed back towards home.

Day breaks just as you re-enter town, but now, the amber star does not precede the sun, they are one and the same. Golden light erupts over the treetops and shines over an immaculate town square. Winter is no more. Fresh emerald leaves encase barren branches, flowers open their petals, and a warm breeze permeates everything. Rapidly, the new light climbs to its final resting spot, you know that its brilliant amber glow will never hurt or burn.

You turn onto your street and marvel at how much life has returned. People are leaving their houses now. Picnics, games and barbecues are scattered across dozens of lawns. Everyone’s faces are smiling, their skin aglow with radiant warmth, their eyes ablaze with golden flame. A smile starts to creep across your face too, it truly is over now, this is real salvation. All the struggles and sufferings are at an end, all your hardships vindicated forever.

And at last, you reach your house. Except it is not the same one you left. What stands in its place is the castle from your wishes, now made real: A huge Gothic mansion built in dark wood and marble, surrounded by great gnarled oaks and towering elms. The amber rays pierce through the leaves and form a million dancing lights on the ground. Now after all this time, you finally dare to look at the glimmering patterns and see that they are truly beautiful beyond your imagination. Something cosmically divine smiles at you through a million tiny eyes scattered across the grass.

Your car smoothly pulls into the long curved driveway and you step out into the perfect summer’s day. Your heart is open, all doubt has been cast aside now. Permeating the air is the warmth of amber. Its essence envelops you and comforting heat soaks through your entire body.

You bound towards the front door, leaping past the spacious porch and push open the lacquered mahogany to a vast atrium. On the grand staircase before you, Leaning on the second floor banisters, is your wife in her stunning dress. Its colors blaze like a sunset in the eternal golden light. She waves to you and you wave back.

“Come on up!” She calls, her voice jubilant and entirely carefree. “It's finally done! Don’t you love it?”

Before you have even willed it, your legs are sprinting up the stairs two at a time. You grab for your wife’s outstretched arms and bury your face in her embrace one more time.

“I love it…” You cry. “I’m home, I’m finally home.” Your wife only smiles and reaches down to stroke your hair.

“It’s finally finished.” She coos, and you agree. You have chosen perfection, you have chosen eternity. Never again will the pain of cold or hunger or despair grace your mind again. There will only be the amber sun forever more. You heave another cry of exhaustion and cling to your wife tighter. There is a long eternity ahead, but this is your paradise, and there is nowhere else you would rather be.