"When the dream remembers you back."
It started with the rain again.
A drizzle that fell soft and rhythmic, like a forgotten melody whispering her name.
An Nian — though now everyone called her Anna — wiped the droplets from her sketchbook. Life was ordinary: morning coffee, art lessons, the occasional déjà vu that made her heart race for no reason.
And yet, lately, she had begun to dream again.
Dreams of glass towers, glowing data streams, and a man with silver eyes calling her name through the static. Each time she woke, tears would already be on her face, though she didn't know why.
---
One evening, she passed by a gallery downtown — Luc Foundation for Neurological Research.
The name pulled at something deep inside her. She walked in.
There he was.
Luc Shenya — standing by a painting, his expression calm but eyes haunted, as if searching for something only he could see.
Their eyes met.
The world tilted.
It wasn't the polite recognition of strangers; it was the silence of two souls that had already touched eternity.
"Miss Anna," he greeted softly. "You came."
Her breath hitched. "You… know me?"
He smiled faintly. "I don't know how. But I've been waiting for you."
---
After that day, they met often — coffee shops, park benches, long walks under the moonlight.
He was gentle, no longer the cold, distant man from before, but someone broken, learning to breathe again.
Yet sometimes, when his fingertips brushed hers, static surged through the air. Light shimmered faintly on her skin, like data flickering.
He noticed — always — but said nothing.
Until one night, under the same rain that had once begun everything, she collapsed.
---
When she woke up, the room was white. Machines hummed softly.
Through the haze, she heard Luc's voice — low, trembling.
"Your brain waves… they're identical to hers. To An Nian."
She blinked, confused. "Who is she?"
He hesitated. Then he showed her an old photo — a woman who looked exactly like her, smiling under the moonlight.
Something inside her cracked open. A flood of images surged:
The accident. The project. The promise.
His voice whispering: 'When you remember everything, I'll disappear.'
---
Luc fell to his knees beside her bed, tears breaking through years of restraint.
"I thought I lost you forever," he whispered. "I told myself I'd let you go… but I can't."
Anna reached out — her fingers trembling — touching his cheek.
"Then don't," she said. "Maybe the world gave us another chance… not to remember, but to feel again."
He held her hand, pressing it to his heart.
"I don't care what's real anymore," he said. "If loving you means living in another illusion — then let it be the most beautiful lie of all."
---
From that night, their lives intertwined once more.
But reality began to bend around them. Streetlights flickered. Clocks stopped. Reflections whispered things she never said.
The digital world — their dream — had begun to bleed into the real one.
Scientists couldn't explain it. But Luc knew: when she remembered him, the system responded.
Her love had always been the bridge between worlds.
---
One night, they stood together by the river, moonlight painting silver over the water.
She whispered, "Luc… if the line between dream and life disappears, what will we become?"
He smiled — that quiet, heartbreaking smile that always melted her.
"Maybe it doesn't matter," he said. "Because whether dream or real — you're still the only truth I want."
Then he leaned closer, their foreheads touching under the pale light.
In that moment, time itself seemed to stop — data and heartbeat merging into one rhythm.
---
The next morning, the world woke to a strange phenomenon.
A gentle shimmer in the sky, like fragments of code dissolving into sunlight.
People called it the Aurora Effect.
Luc and Anna watched it from the rooftop.
Their hands intertwined.
Neither spoke.
Because deep down, they knew — this was their world rewriting itself.
Not science. Not fate.
Just love — stubborn enough to bridge the impossible.
And when the first light of dawn touched her hair, she turned to him and smiled, whispering the words that had once ended a dream —
but this time, began a new reality:
"Under the moonlight, you are — and will always be — real."