The silence in Marcus's apartment felt alive, breathing with the weight of everything Elena couldn't say. She stood by the window, watching the city lights blur through rain-streaked glass, while her mind replayed the conversation with Dr. Harrow over and over like a broken record.
"Some dreams aren't meant to be remembered."
But how could she forget now? How could she unsee what she'd witnessed in that sterile observation room—the other dreamers, their bodies twitching with the same violent spasms she recognized from her own episodes, their mouths moving in silent screams that echoed in dimensions she was only beginning to understand?
"You've been quiet since we left the facility," Marcus said from behind her. His reflection appeared in the window, concern etched across his features. "Talk to me."
Elena pressed her forehead against the cool glass. "They're not helping those people, Marcus. They're studying them. Like lab rats."
"You don't know that."
"Don't I?" She turned to face him, and the movement sent a wave of dizziness through her skull. The world tilted slightly, just enough to remind her that reality wasn't as stable as it once seemed. "Dr. Harrow practically admitted it. All that talk about 'understanding the phenomenon' and 'controlled environments'—those people aren't patients, they're specimens."
Marcus crossed the room, his hands reaching for hers, but Elena pulled away. She couldn't bear to be touched right now, couldn't stand the feeling of being anchored to this reality when part of her was already slipping away into the spaces between dreams.
"And what about me?" she continued, her voice rising. "What am I to you, Marcus? Another interesting case study? Another data point in whatever research you're actually conducting?"
The hurt that flashed across his face looked genuine, but Elena had learned that appearances were the least trustworthy thing in the world. Dreams wore the face of reality. Lies dressed themselves in truth. And the people you trusted most were often the ones with the sharpest knives hidden behind their backs.
"That's not fair," Marcus said quietly. "Everything I've done has been to help you."
"Has it? Or has it been to help yourself?" Elena laughed, but there was no humor in it. "I saw the way Dr. Harrow looked at you when we arrived. Like you were colleagues. Like you'd been in contact before I ever mentioned her name."
Marcus was quiet for a long moment. Too long. And in that silence, Elena felt something inside her chest crack open like a fault line before an earthquake.
"I should have told you," he finally said. "I reached out to her weeks ago, after your first major episode. I was worried, and I thought she might be able to help."
"You went behind my back."
"I was trying to protect you!"
"From what?" Elena's voice cracked. "From the truth? From understanding what's happening to me?"
"From making yourself worse!" Marcus stepped closer, his composure finally breaking. "Do you have any idea what it's like watching you disappear right in front of me? Watching you slip further into these dreams every single day, knowing that one time you might not come back?"
Elena stared at him, her chest heaving. Part of her wanted to believe him, wanted to fall into his arms and let him carry the weight of her fear. But trust was a luxury she could no longer afford.
"I'm going to bed," she said, moving toward the guest room where she'd been staying since the incident at her apartment. Her apartment. The place that now felt like it belonged to someone else, some version of Elena who still believed the world made sense.
"Elena, wait—"
"I need to think, Marcus. Alone."
She closed the door before he could respond, leaning against it as her breath came in shallow gasps. The room spun slightly, and she recognized the sensation—the prelude to another episode. Her dreams were coming more frequently now, bleeding into waking hours with increasing aggression.
Elena stumbled to the bed and lay down, closing her eyes not out of choice but necessity. The darkness behind her eyelids swirled with colors that shouldn't exist, shapes that defied geometry, sounds that existed somewhere between hearing and feeling.
And then she was elsewhere.
The dreamscape materialized around her with unusual clarity. She stood in a vast library, its shelves stretching up into infinity, disappearing into a ceiling that might not exist at all. But unlike her previous dreams, this place felt different. More solid. More intentional.
"You're learning."
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere. Elena spun around, searching for its source.
"Who are you?"
"I'm what you'll become," the voice replied. "If you survive long enough."
A figure emerged from between the shelves—a woman with Elena's face, but older, worn down by experiences that hadn't happened yet. Or maybe they had. Time felt negotiable here, like a suggestion rather than a law.
"This isn't real," Elena whispered. "You're just another manifestation. My subconscious playing tricks."
"Is that what you think?" The other Elena smiled sadly. "Tell me, which version of you is real? The one who worked a normal job and believed in a rational world? The one who started having nightmares and thought she was going insane? Or this version, standing in a library that exists in the collective unconscious of every dreamer who's ever lived?"
"I don't understand."
"You will." The older Elena reached out, and when her fingers brushed against Elena's forehead, images flooded her mind. Memories that weren't hers. Experiences she'd never lived. She saw Dr. Harrow in a different facility, decades younger, strapping a young woman to a chair. Saw Marcus in a conference room, signing documents marked with classified stamps. Saw herself—or versions of herself—in a hundred different timelines, each one ending in darkness.
"They've been studying dreamers for generations," the older Elena said. "Trying to understand how we access the spaces between realities. Trying to weaponize it."
"No." Elena pulled away, but the visions continued. "That's insane."
"Is it? Think about it. Why would a prestigious neuroscientist dedicate her entire career to studying dreams? Why would Marcus just happen to be there every time you needed him? Why would your episodes start exactly when they did?"
"You're saying they caused this?"
"I'm saying nothing happens by accident. Not in your life. Not anymore."
Elena's mind raced, connecting dots she'd been too frightened to see before. The experimental treatment she'd volunteered for six months ago, desperate for help with her insomnia. The clinic that had seemed too good to be true, offering free therapy and medication. The doctor who'd seemed so understanding, so eager to help.
Dr. Harrow.
"Oh God," Elena breathed. "It was her. She did this to me."
"She opened the door," the older Elena confirmed. "But you're the one who walked through it. And now you have to decide—do you close it again, or do you learn to live in the spaces between?"
"I don't want this!"
"Too late. You're already changing. Can't you feel it? The way reality shifts when you're upset? The way your dreams bleed into the waking world? You're becoming something new, Elena. Something they want to control."
"Then I'll fight them."
"Will you?" The older Elena's expression turned pitying. "Even knowing what I know? Even understanding what you'll have to sacrifice?"
"What are you talking about?"
The library began to dissolve, its infinite shelves collapsing into static and shadow. The older Elena's form flickered like a dying light.
"Look in his desk," she whispered as the dream fell apart. "Bottom drawer, left side. The red folder. Then decide if you can still trust him."
Elena woke with a gasp, her heart hammering against her ribs. The guest room was dark, silent except for the distant hum of traffic. She checked her phone: 3:47 AM. She'd been asleep for less than an hour, but it felt like days had passed.
The red folder.
She shouldn't. It was a violation of privacy, of trust. If she looked and found nothing, it would mean she'd let paranoia drive a wedge between her and the one person who'd stood by her through all of this.
But what if she found something?
Elena stood on shaking legs and opened the bedroom door. The apartment was dark, Marcus's bedroom door closed. She could hear his soft breathing from across the hall—he was asleep.
She crept into his study, her bare feet silent on the hardwood floor. The desk sat against the far wall, covered with papers and books, all the usual detritus of an academic's life. Normal. Innocent.
Elena knelt beside it and pulled open the bottom left drawer.
The red folder sat on top, as if waiting for her. As if it had always been waiting for her.
Her hands trembled as she pulled it out, opened it. The documents inside were dense with technical language, but certain phrases leapt out at her like accusations:
"Subject E-7 showing promising results..."
"Neurological changes exceeding projections..."
"Recommend increasing dosage to accelerate dream state integration..."
And there, clipped to the top of one report: a photograph of her, asleep in a chair she'd never seen before, electrodes attached to her skull, taken in a room she didn't remember.
The date on the photo was from three months ago.
Elena's vision blurred as tears spilled down her cheeks. She flipped through more pages, each one a betrayal, each one a knife in her back. Detailed notes about her behaviors, her fears, her most intimate confessions—all documented with clinical precision.
And at the bottom of the folder, a contract with Marcus's signature: "Lead Observer, Project Echo."
The floor seemed to drop away beneath her. Every conversation they'd ever had, every moment of vulnerability, every time she'd trusted him—all of it had been a lie. He wasn't her friend. He was her handler.
Behind her, a floorboard creaked.
Elena spun around to find Marcus standing in the doorway, his expression unreadable in the darkness.
"I was wondering when you'd find that," he said quietly.
And in that moment, Elena realized something terrifying: she had no idea which one of them was still dreaming.