Every night, the dreams came. Not in a way that could be explained or predicted, but with a strange consistency that made them feel less like random visions and more like messages. Lila had always been a light sleeper, but lately, she found herself waking up with the same feeling—like she had just stepped out of a dream so vivid it left her trembling, though she couldn't remember what it was about. The first time it happened, she dismissed it as stress. She had been working long hours at the library, cataloging old books that smelled of dust and forgotten stories. The city around her was quiet, its streets empty at night, save for the occasional flicker of neon from a late-night diner. But the dreams were different. They weren’t nightmares, not exactly. They were more like fragments of something ancient, something watching her through the cracks of her mind. She would wake up in the middle of the night, heart pounding, with no memory of the dream, only a lingering sense of being observed. Sometimes, she would find her hands curled into fists, as if she had tried to grab something invisible. Other times, she would hear a whisper, soft and distant, like a voice carried by the wind through an open window. One morning, she noticed something odd. A small, circular mark on her wrist, like a bruise, but not quite. It pulsed faintly when she touched it, and when she looked in the mirror, she saw the same mark reflected in her eyes. That was when she started paying attention. She began keeping a journal, writing down every detail she could recall after each dream. Most were vague: a staircase that led nowhere, a door that opened into a room filled with mirrors, a child’s laughter echoing in an empty house. But one dream stood out. In it, she was standing in a field of tall grass, the sky a deep, unnatural blue. A figure stood at the edge of the field, cloaked in shadow, holding a lantern that burned with green flame. The figure didn’t move, didn’t speak, but Lila felt a pull, a strange compulsion to walk toward it. She wrote this down, then forgot about it for days. Until the next night, when she found herself standing in the same field, the same sky above her, the same figure waiting. This time, the lantern was brighter, and the air around her felt heavier, like she was breathing through water. She took a step forward, and the world around her shifted. When she woke up, she was still in bed, but the room was colder than before. Her hand trembled as she reached for the journal. The entry she had written earlier was now gone, replaced by a new line: "They are watching." She didn’t know how to explain it, but she knew something had changed. The dreams grew more frequent, more detailed. She saw a library, but not the one she worked in. It was older, its shelves stretching into darkness, filled with books that whispered when she passed. She heard voices, not speaking in any language she recognized, but their meaning was clear: *You are not alone.* One night, she followed the dream again. This time, the figure was closer, its face hidden beneath the hood of its cloak. When she reached out, the lantern flared, and for a moment, she saw something in its light—a reflection of herself, but younger, with eyes that seemed to hold secrets. Then the light went out, and the figure vanished. She woke up screaming, but no one heard her. Her apartment was silent, except for the sound of her own breath. The mark on her wrist had grown darker, and now it throbbed with a rhythm that matched her heartbeat. Days passed, and the dreams continued. She stopped sleeping, afraid of what might come next. But the more she avoided sleep, the more the dreams invaded her waking thoughts. She saw the same figure in the corners of her vision, heard the same whispers in the quiet moments between heartbeats. Then, one night, she dreamed of the library again. This time, she wasn’t just a visitor. She was a keeper. The books spoke to her, not in words, but in memories, in emotions. She saw the history of the place, the people who had walked its halls, the secrets they had left behind. And among them, a name: *Lila.* She woke up gasping, her heart racing. The journal lay open beside her, and the page she had written on was now filled with her own handwriting, describing the dream she had just had—but she hadn’t written it. The last line read: *It is not your dream. It is yours.* She didn’t know what that meant. She didn’t know if she was dreaming or if the dreams had become real. But as she sat in the dark, staring at the mark on her wrist, she realized something terrifying: she could no longer tell where the dream ended and reality began.