Every night, she dreamed of the same place. A quiet town nestled between two hills, where the air smelled like damp earth and old wood. The streets were empty, but the buildings stood tall and proud, their windows glowing faintly as if lit from within. She always woke up with the same feeling—something was watching her, not in a way that made her fear, but in a way that made her feel known. At first, she thought it was just a recurring dream, a product of her imagination or perhaps stress. But the details kept getting clearer. The town had no name, but she could see the clock tower at the center, its hands frozen at 3:17. There was a bakery on the corner, its sign slightly crooked, and a man in a gray coat who would sometimes appear at the edge of the street, looking directly at her before vanishing into the fog. She started to write down the dreams, hoping to understand them. The more she wrote, the more the images seemed to bleed into reality. One morning, she found a small locket in her pocket, its surface etched with the same time—3:17. It felt warm, as though it had been there for days. She didn’t remember putting it there. The next week, she began to notice things. The clock tower in her neighborhood had a similar design to the one in her dreams, though it wasn’t broken. The baker’s shop nearby had a sign that read "Morgan's Bakery," and when she walked past it, the door creaked open slightly, as if expecting her. She never saw the man in the gray coat, but she felt his presence often, like a whisper at the edge of her thoughts. One night, she decided to follow the dream. She left her apartment and wandered through the city until she reached an old district she had never seen before. The buildings were older, their paint peeling, and the air carried a strange stillness. She followed the path of the dream, past the bakery, toward the clock tower. When she arrived, the hands of the clock moved slowly, ticking in perfect sync with her heartbeat. Inside the tower, there was a single room with a chair and a mirror. The mirror showed not her reflection, but the town from her dreams. She stepped closer, and the image shifted. She saw herself standing in the same room, but this time, she was older, her eyes filled with something she couldn’t name. Behind her, the man in the gray coat stood silently, watching. A voice spoke, though no one was there. “You are not the first, and you will not be the last.” She turned around, but the room was empty. The mirror had gone dark, and the clock tower was silent. When she left, the town was gone, replaced by the familiar streets of her city. But the locket remained in her hand, and the time on it had changed—now it read 4:28. She tried to forget, but the dreams returned every night, each one slightly different. Sometimes the town was brighter, sometimes darker. Sometimes the man in the gray coat was smiling, sometimes frowning. The locket grew heavier with each passing day, and the time on it shifted unpredictably. One night, she found herself back in the tower, the mirror reflecting a version of herself that looked exactly like her, yet somehow… wrong. The man in the gray coat stood beside her, and this time, he spoke. “You are caught between two worlds,” he said. “The dream is not a place, but a moment. You have been here before, and you will return again. But the question is, when will you choose to stay?” She tried to ask him what he meant, but the mirror cracked, and the world around her faded into darkness. She woke up in her bed, the locket now cold in her palm, and the time on it had stopped completely. Since then, she has not had any dreams. But every once in a while, she catches a glimpse of the clock tower in the corner of her eye, or hears the faint sound of a creaking door. She doesn’t know if she is awake or dreaming, and sometimes she wonders if she will ever find out.