My head pounded when I awoke as if I’d stayed up late drinking. But I’d only been studying magic. The morning sunlight was warm on my face as I stretched my arms across the cotton sheets, curved my back, and yawned. My eyes slowly opened to yellow sunbeams spilling past the blinds.

I shot up in bed, shaking the mattress as I did so, which elicited an annoyed sigh from where Mona was sleeping on the other side. I jumped out of bed and looked around the room frantically, almost slipping on the hardwood floor as I realized I was wearing a t-shirt and sweat pants, that I was five-foot-six rather than six-foot-something, that the sun was yellow, that my window looked out upon distant mountains and a garbage truck driving down the street. The sound of its noisy engine retreated into the distance as my brain tried and failed to process any of what I was seeing. From farther still, the faint sounds of the freeway drifted in through a small gap in the slightly open window.

I had finally woken up. I was back to reality. I looked down at my hands, flexed my perfectly normal, clawless fingers, then felt my head, trying to find horns.

Wait.

I slowly turned back to the bed.

She had one arm resting across her face as if to hide her eyes from the sun. The bed sheets ended at her waist, and everything above them was exposed. I saw her and remembered something from the dream I’d just woken up from.

With a groan, she sat up in bed, and her arm fell. Looking at her face, I remembered when we’d first met. We’d gotten coffee. I remembered nights with movies and green chile cheeseburgers—real ones, that had happened to me. I remembered all of it. I remembered our fourth date, when we’d gone to the BioPark together. Late in the day, we’d sat on a bench, and she’d rested her head against my shoulder as the sun set, and I realized I wanted to be with her for the rest of my life, for however long she’d have me. I remembered lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, marveling at my luck the first night she asked me to stay at her place. My eyes traveled down her naked body, getting lost in the memories of her before I suddenly looked away, feeling myself blush, averting my eyes to the floor.

“You weren’t shy last night,” she said, laughing. She reached behind her back, scratching. Once free of the itch, she let out a contented sigh. “Ugh, I’m so sweaty.”

“Not shy, Maria, it was just…” I couldn’t remember what it was that had seemed so strange. Of course, this was real, and everything else had been a nightmare. She got out of bed and kissed me on the cheek, then walked to the dresser and rummaged through her clothing.

Soon she was wearing a New Mexico Lobos Alumni T-shirt with a picture of a wolf on it. Perhaps it was the throbbing in my head, the strange jumbled feeling of my memories, but I had no idea what that meant. She turned to me and smiled. “Chilaquiles?” she asked. “I’m huuu-ungry.”

She pinched my ass on her way out of the room, something I remembered she often did. I listened to her footsteps retreat down the hallway before rounding the corner into the kitchen.

I stared at the bed in shock, at the indentation in the mattress where she’d been sleeping. Maria, I thought. Maria Chavez. That’s her name. Why did I think it was Mona? It’s a good thing I didn’t call her that. She would have punched me in the face.

Confused, I followed her past the bathroom door and into the kitchen. I blinked my eyes, watching as she started playing alt rock from a Bluetooth speaker and taking stuff out of the fridge.

“Get the tortillas and a can of beans for me?” she asked.

I looked at her for a moment, surprised, panicking because I had no idea where to find them. But thankfully, I was able to follow the direction of her gaze to a cabinet at the other end of the kitchen.

A can of frijoles refritos was on the second highest shelf of the pantry, at eye level. After a search through the fridge which felt like I was playing a particularly uninspired version of “Where’s Waldo?” I found the bag of tortillas at the back of one of the shelves.

I carried them to the counter and placed them next to her. She’d already grabbed the frying pan and turned on the stove.

“Are you okay?” Maria asked. “You’re acting weird.” Her eyes were filled with concern. I looked at the mole she had next to her mouth, and remembered that I’d always thought it was cute. I’d forgotten about it for some reason, forgotten about her, which made me sad. We’d been together for almost five years.

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“I’m okay,” I said, smiling at her. “I just feel strange.”

“Maybe breakfast will do you some good, then,” she said. “And here I thought I partied too hard last night.”

“No, it’s not that.” I rubbed my temple with my fingers. Our party had been a large pepperoni pizza, a joint, and a couple of beers. “I had a weird dream, but it’s no big deal.”

“Oh? About what?” She began to cut the tortillas into triangles. As I watched her, images flashed through my mind, jumbled memories of all the strange foods I’d eaten in my dream, all those cursed meats and fungi. My mind had invented so many strange things. They’d seemed edible at the time but positively foul in hindsight.

“Well, I dreamed a lot of things,” I said, leaning against the counter next to Maria while she cooked. I remembered doing this a lot, keeping Maria company, fetching things for her, and enjoying breakfast together before we went our separate ways to work.

She was a nurse, and I worked in a museum. Right, of course. I hadn’t planned on it, but after getting rejected from every grad school I’d applied to almost ten years ago, the opportunity had presented itself, and I’d jumped at it. And I did enjoy it, most of the time, even if it wasn’t what I’d ever expected to be.

“It’s kind of hazy. Well, for starters, you were a demon. I mean, we both were.”

She looked at me and smirked. “Was I a cute demon?”

“The cutest.” I grinned. “But a little crazy.”

Maria pouted, and began placing the chopped up tortillas into the frying oil. She clicked her tongue. “You’re so mean,” she whined, though she was still smiling. “Cute but crazy, huh?”

“I mean, it wasn’t really you.”

“So you’re dreaming of other girls, huh?”

I laughed. “You were clearly the inspiration.”

“Me, a crazy demon. Was I a bad bitch, at least?”

I smiled at her, trying to remember what she’d been like in the dream. So different, yet somehow with the same essence at her core. “The baddest. Just like in real life.”

“You’re so stu-pid,” she said, which really meant, I love you.

I smiled. “I’m glad you approve of my dream that I totally had no control over.”

She looked at me and smiled back. “Babe, can you set the table?”

“Sure,” I said. I opened the wrong cabinet, then the wrong drawer, but thankfully Maria didn’t notice. She was focused rather intently on finishing up our meal.

I found the right cabinet eventually and began to set out the plates and cutlery, pausing for a moment to admire the sunlight pouring through the windows and into the nook where we kept our kitchen table. I had never understood the true beauty of the sun. I had never appreciated it the way I should have. Earth could have had a much worse sun.

“You know, it was kind of disturbing,” I said as I carefully lined up Maria’s fork on her napkin. “I’m so glad it’s over.”

“Oh? What was disturbing?”

Maria turned off the stove with a click, and my mouth watered for some actual food. She’d gotten it ready so quickly, yet more evidence she was a wizard at cooking. I remembered that I’d used to cook for myself, albeit very poorly, before we’d met. But I’d certainly eaten a lot better since we moved in together. In return, I made myself available to open pickle jars, reach high shelves, and procure emergency chocolate for her as needed. I just hoped she’d keep thinking this was a fair trade.

“Nothing,” I said, and I felt Maria’s arms wrap around my chest.

“You sure? You sounded upset, Greg,” she said, her voice soft and sweet, her breath hot against my ear.

“Well, it’s just that in the dream, I’d died.”

“Oh,” she said, “well, that’s no surprise.”

I felt her arms tighten, and I dropped the plate I’d been holding, which landed on the tile floor and shattered, scattering shards across the kitchen. Her hands reached up, coiling around my neck. I tried to be free of her, but when I grabbed for her arms, my hands passed through her as if she were a ghost. I tried to run, but realized I couldn’t move. My feet were frozen to the ground. I was utterly at her mercy. Dark spots began to cloud my vision.

“You did die, Greg,” she said, sobbing. I tried to scream, but nothing came out. “We both did.” She wailed—a long, rending scream that tore at my nerves and heart.

At last, her shadowy hands released me, but my relief ended as quickly as it began. I felt myself falling, my feet sinking through the floor as if I, too, had become a ghost. My hands reached in vain to scrabble at the floor until I fell beneath it, as if my soul had been taken to an abyss under the world.

The Void, I remembered. How could I have ever forgotten?

I was all alone down here, but then I closed my eyes in the darkness and my third eye burst open, and I saw her again. Far above, where Maria had been standing, I saw a burning orb of light, its emanations echoing within my soul. I saw Mona’s Will—Maria’s Will, one and the same—twinkling up there, like a lighthouse in a dark, storm-tossed sea, calling me to a place and time I could never return to.

A beautiful day that had died long ago.

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I awoke gasping for air, a trail of drool hanging from my lip, my hands reaching upwards, trying to grasp a fading dream. Gravity and Time fell from my lap and landed on the floor with a resounding thud. As I looked down at my hands, clawed and red, it set in that I was a demon once again. The nightmare wasn’t over.

But the dream, I thought. What did it mean? I looked at our bed, but it was empty, the sheets pulled up and carefully flattened. Dawn’s rusted light had just begun to spill across the distant mountains. She must have woken early and slipped away without me noticing.

Now I wanted to see her more than ever—Mona or Maria? Whoever she was, I wanted to talk with her while we ate breakfast. I wanted to watch her rummage for a shirt to wear. I wanted her to tell me everything on her mind. I wanted to tell her I wasn’t the only one who had lived and died. I was simply the only one who remembered. But the room was empty, and the only trace of her was a faint dark spot on the pillow, blood-stained by her tears.