The 26th Dream

The moment Rhea closed her eyes, the world tilted.

She stood in a massive hall, walls lined with towering clocks—their hands spinning wildly. Some ticked forward, some backward. None of them made sense. The sound of grinding gears filled the air, like time itself was breaking apart.

At the far end of the room, she saw him.

A shadowed figure, standing still, back turned to her.

The shattered light of a broken stained-glass window lit his outline.

V.

Her chest tightened. Even in dreams, seeing him made her heart ache.

But tonight, something was different. The air wasn't just silent—it was heavy with dread.

"You're late," he whispered, his voice soft but worn out. He didn't turn around.

Rhea took a shaky step forward. "Late for what?"

"The trial."

Before she could ask what that meant, the ground shook.

The clocks cracked like breaking ice. One by one, their hands snapped backward, spinning faster and faster.

The air grew cold—so cold it stung her lungs.

Finally, V turned to face her.

Her stomach dropped.

His eyes—normally warm, even in dreams—were empty now. Colorless.

His skin looked almost see-through, like he was fading away.

"You have to stop it," he said, his voice barely a whisper over the chaos.

"Stop what?" Rhea reached for him, but her hand went right through his wrist. He was like smoke.

Her pulse raced.

"What's happening to you?"

"The curse is eating time. My time." His hollow eyes flicked to the breaking clocks.

"If you don't fix this, I won't just disappear from here—"

His voice dropped, almost breaking.

"—I'll disappear from there too."

The real world.

Those words didn't need to be spoken. She felt them settle like ice in her chest.

Suddenly, a deafening CRACK filled the air.

One of the clocks exploded—glass and gears rained down.

Rhea flinched, but the debris turned into black smoke, curling around her ankles like cold fingers trying to pull her down.

"How do I fix it?" she begged, her voice shaking.

V opened his mouth to answer—

—but the floor beneath them vanished.

She fell.

Fell into darkness, her breath torn from her throat.

In the middle of the fall, her hands brushed against something—a chain, cold and heavy. She grabbed it just as her fall stopped with a jerk.

Above her, pieces of the clock tower hung, floating in a dark void.

Below her, an endless abyss yawned wide, waiting.

The chain was made of interlocking clock gears, each one carved with strange symbols. One gear glowed softly, pulsing like a heartbeat.

This is the trial.

She didn't know how she knew, but she did.

The dream was testing her. Again.

Her hands bled as she climbed the chain, the gears biting into her skin.

But she kept climbing.

The air whispered around her, voices slithering through the dark.

"You'll fail."

"He's already gone."

"Time doesn't forgive."

Rhea squeezed her eyes shut.

"No," she whispered through gritted teeth.

"I'm not letting go."

Then—another voice. Clearer.

V's voice.

"Look at the gears."

Her eyes flew open.

The glowing gear in her hand wasn't just pulsing—it was counting down.

The strange symbols shifted into numbers:

26… 25… 24…

Her breath caught.

Twenty-six dreams.

She was losing them.

She was losing him.

Panic surged through her.

With a cry, she ripped the glowing gear free.

The chain shattered.

The world exploded into light.

Rhea woke up gasping, her body drenched in cold sweat.

Her heart pounded in her chest as she clutched the sheets.

The room was dark.

Sia slept quietly in the bed across from hers, breathing steady.

Rhea grabbed her phone with shaking fingers.

3:26 AM.

And then she saw it.

On her wrist—where the dream's chain had cut her—there was a mark.

A thin, jagged line. Like a crack.

She touched it.

It didn't hurt.

But it was real.

Her throat tightened. The dream had left a mark—again.

Just like last time.

The shadow in the metro station that looked too much like V.

The whispers in the wind that sounded like his voice.

The line between dreams and reality was fading.

Rhea curled her fingers into a fist.

She didn't know how much time she had left.

But she knew one thing for sure:

The next dream wouldn't just be a trial.

It would be a race against time itself.

TO BE CONTINUE...