The world trembled as Elias stepped into the unknown.
He had crossed landscapes torn from memory, wandered through illusions stitched together by half-truths, and now he stood before the Dreamwell—a vast, glowing lake nestled at the heart of the Dreamscape. It pulsed with a rhythm older than time, its surface alive with shifting hues—violet laced with gold, deep crimson bleeding into shimmering silver. The water was not water at all, but a liquid tapestry of forgotten dreams, echoing with voices of the past, present, and possible futures.
Each ripple whispered something. Names he'd never heard yet somehow knew. Emotions not his own but painfully familiar. Visions flickered on the surface: cities lost to time, lovers reunited in impossible realms, and shadows devouring light.
He approached the edge, the air thick with unspoken truth.
For a long moment, Elias stared into the Dreamwell, watching his reflection flicker like a faulty memory. The image shifted between versions of himself—a child with wide, innocent eyes, a warrior bathed in blood, a broken figure kneeling before a gravestone, a god of dreams crowned in stars. All of them were him. None of them were him.
He reached out.
The water did not ripple. Instead, it responded like a living thing, extending upward in tendrils of light that brushed his fingertips. The sensation was electric—a surge of forgotten memories, unspoken fears, and hidden truths.
"You finally came."
The voice came not from the lake but from within him. Elias turned, startled, and found a figure stepping from the mist. It was him—or rather, it looked like him. His doppelgänger. The Dream Echo. A being born from the fractured remnants of his discarded selves—everything he had chosen to forget or ignore.
"You," Elias said, voice barely above a whisper.
The Echo tilted its head. Its eyes were black voids, reflecting no light, yet somehow held every memory Elias had tried to bury.
"You seek answers," it said. "But do you seek redemption, or just closure?"
Elias said nothing. He didn't know. Maybe he wanted both. Maybe he wanted to wake up and forget everything. But deep down, he knew there was no waking up. Not anymore.
The Echo stepped closer. "Do you remember why the Dreamscape exists?"
"I... thought it was created by the dreamers," Elias replied, uncertain.
"It was," the Echo said, "but not in the way you think. The Dreamscape is not a sanctuary. It is a prison."
A chill ran through Elias. "For what?"
"For us," the Echo whispered. "For the ones who once tried to shape reality, who tampered with the fabric of existence and paid the price. You were one of the first, Elias. You and Lyra. You didn't fall into the Dreamscape—you built it."
"No," Elias said, shaking his head. "That can't be right."
"You wanted to forget. So you did. Over and over again. Each cycle, each version of you, locked away a part of the truth. But it's all here. In the Dreamwell."
The Echo gestured to the lake, and it surged forward—light wrapping around Elias like tendrils of memory. He cried out as visions slammed into his mind:
He saw Lyra, not as a guide, but as a co-creator. She stood beside him, weaving dreams into walls, illusions into gates. Together, they had sealed away a power too great for any one mind to hold.
He saw their betrayal—others who had joined them, who had turned on them. To protect the Dreamscape, Lyra had sacrificed her identity, fragmenting herself across realms. Elias had done the same but had gone further—he had erased his own role entirely.
And then—he saw the truth.
The Dreamwell was not a source of power. It was the last remnant of the original world, the raw fabric of pure reality, too dangerous to remain unguarded. Elias had volunteered to become its guardian.
But he had failed.
Again. And again. And again.
Every version of him was a repetition, a loop of forgetting and rediscovery. Each time he got close to the truth, the Dreamscape rewrote itself. To protect him. Or to imprison him.
The visions receded, leaving him breathless, on his knees beside the shimmering lake. Tears ran freely down his face, not from pain but from the unbearable weight of knowledge reclaimed.
"You chose this," the Echo said softly. "And you can choose again."
Elias looked up. "Why show me this now?"
"Because the Dreamscape is unraveling," the Echo said. "The paradoxes are catching up. If you do not act, it will collapse. And everything inside it—every dream, every soul—will be lost."
Elias stared into the Dreamwell again. He saw Lyra—her fragmented self—struggling to hold the veil together. He saw faces he'd never met but cared for anyway. He saw possibilities that deserved to live.
He stood.
"I won't forget again," he said. "If this place is to survive, I need to remember who I am."
The Echo nodded. "Then you must take the Dreamwell into yourself. The cost will be high."
Elias didn't hesitate. "Do it."
The lake erupted in a storm of light, spiraling around him. It poured into him, searing every nerve, igniting every memory. He screamed—but he did not fall. The knowledge burned, reshaped him, and for the first time, he was whole.
The Dream Echo faded, its purpose fulfilled.
Elias stood alone on the shore, but no longer lost.
He turned toward the horizon, where the Dreamscape trembled like a world about to collapse.
Not yet, Elias thought.
Not while I still dream.