Maya had been back in Chicago for three weeks, and every day felt like drowning in slow motion. The city that had once energized her now felt like a prison of concrete and steel, trapping her in a life that no longer belonged to her. Her apartment, with its carefully curated collection of literary awards and organized research materials, felt like a museum dedicated to someone else's life—a successful woman she no longer recognized or wanted to be.
She sat at her kitchen table at three in the afternoon, still in the same oversized t-shirt she'd worn to bed three days ago, staring at a protein shake that Anya had left in her refrigerator with a note that read "Please try to drink this - A." The very thought of consuming anything made her stomach clench with nausea that had become her constant companion. Food had become the enemy—everything tasted like ash, and the mere act of chewing required energy she no longer possessed. In three weeks, she'd lost fourteen pounds from a frame that couldn't afford to lose weight, her clothes hanging loose on a body that felt increasingly foreign to her.
But the physical deterioration wasn't the worst part. The worst part was the spiritual agony that came every time she tried to reach across time to connect with Ouray and met only silence—not the warm, welcoming presence she'd grown accustomed to in Colorado, but a wall of focused resistance that sent waves of excruciating pain through her entire being. She understood now what he'd meant when he'd told her that rejecting her calls hurt him too. The spiritual feedback was like being struck by lightning repeatedly, leaving her weak and nauseated for hours afterward, curled on her bathroom floor waiting for the worst of the pain to pass.
What terrified her most was that she could feel everything he was feeling. Their connection worked both ways now, and she experienced his emotions as if they were her own—his fear when soldiers were near, his exhaustion from leading his people through dangerous terrain, his constant worry about their safety. During the day, waves of anxiety and vigilance would wash over her without warning, leaving her gasping and disoriented as she struggled to separate his experiences from her own.
Writing was the only time she felt truly present in her body, the only activity that quieted the constant ache of separation that had taken up residence in her chest. She had been working on a novel, pouring everything she'd experienced into a story that felt more real than her actual life. But she was careful to disguise the details, changing locations and professions and names while keeping the emotional truth intact.
Maya opened her laptop and scrolled to the document that had consumed her:
BETWEEN WORLDSA Novel by Maya Sterling
Chapter 1: The Curator's Dreams
Dr. Zara Blackwood had built her reputation on facts. As the head curator of Indigenous American artifacts at the Boston Museum of Natural History, she dealt in provenance, authentication, and historical accuracy. Her world was one of carbon dating and careful documentation, where every claim needed evidence and every story required verification.
Which was why the dreams made no sense.
They had started six months ago, vivid and consistent in ways that defied rational explanation. Every night, Zara found herself standing beside a crystal-clear mountain lake, surrounded by towering pines and red rock formations so beautiful they made her chest ache with recognition. The landscape felt more familiar than the city where she'd lived for eight years, more real than the museum where she spent her days cataloging artifacts from cultures that had been reduced to objects behind glass.
And always, always, there was a man watching her from across the water.
He was Native American, with long black hair that moved in mountain winds and dark eyes that seemed to see straight through to her soul. High cheekbones spoke of noble heritage, and his bearing carried the authority of someone accustomed to being listened to and respected. Even in dreams, she could feel the strength radiating from his tall, powerful frame, but it was his eyes that captured her completely—eyes that looked at her with recognition so profound it took her breath away.
He would speak to her in languages she'd never learned but somehow understood, calling her "Aiyana" with such tenderness that she would wake with tears on her cheeks. His voice carried the warmth of summer sun and the strength of mountain stone, wrapping around her like an embrace that made her feel safer than she'd ever felt in her waking life.
Night after night, these dreams grew more vivid and detailed. She began to recognize the landscape around the lake, could describe every tree and rock formation with perfect accuracy despite never having seen them with her waking eyes. She learned to anticipate the way sunset painted the mountains in shades of gold and pink, could predict the moment when stars would begin reflecting on the still water like scattered diamonds.
But most importantly, she began to understand that this wasn't just a dream. The man who called her Aiyana felt too real, too consistent, too emotionally present to be a creation of her sleeping mind. When he looked at her, she felt known in ways that went beyond ordinary recognition. When he spoke, his words carried weight and wisdom that resonated in her bones. When he reached toward her, she felt the ghost of touch that lingered long after she'd awakened.
Chapter 2: The Search Begins
As a curator, Zara had spent years studying the spiritual beliefs of indigenous cultures. She knew about vision quests and dream walking, about the thin places where the physical and spiritual worlds intersected. She had catalogued countless artifacts that spoke to Native American understanding of time as cyclical rather than linear, of souls that could traverse boundaries that Western minds considered fixed. But she had never believed any of it applied to her own life.
The research began innocently enough. Zara started by examining the artifacts in her own museum's collection, looking for any reference to the distinctive landscape from her dreams. She spent hours comparing her mental images to historical photographs and geological surveys, her academic training warring with the growing certainty that she would find what she was looking for.
When she finally discovered the location—Sacred Springs Lake in the Colorado Territory, now part of the Ute Mountain Reservation—her hands shook so badly she could barely hold the reference materials. The photographs matched her dreams down to the smallest detail, including rock formations and tree lines that should have been impossible for her to know.
That's when she understood she had to go there.
The trip felt like the most important journey of her life, though she couldn't explain why to anyone who asked. Her assistant thought she was having a creative breakthrough, finally ready to write about something personally meaningful instead of the dry academic papers that had built her career. Her department head was concerned about the departure from her research schedule, but excited about the potential for a book that might reach beyond academic circles.
She told them she was researching a potential new exhibition about Indigenous American connections to sacred sites. This was partially true—her professional interest in the intersection of anthropology and spirituality had been growing for months. But the deeper truth was that she was following a calling she couldn't name, pursuing something that felt more important than career advancement or academic recognition.
She was searching for the source of dreams that had become more real to her than her waking life.
Chapter 3: Finding Him
The curator who had agreed to help with her research—Dr. Elena Whitehorse from the Ute Cultural Center—possessed knowledge that went far beyond documented facts and archived records. When she showed Zara a photograph of a Ute war chief from the 1860s, the world seemed to shift around her like tectonic plates rearranging themselves.
It was him. The man from her dreams, captured in faded sepia tones but unmistakably the face that had been calling to her across impossible distances. Every detail was exactly as she'd seen him in sleep—the noble bearing, the intelligent eyes, the strength that radiated even through an old photograph.
"His name was Takoda," Dr. Whitehorse said, watching Zara's reaction with the knowing look of someone who understood far more than she was willing to reveal immediately. "He was a respected war chief of the Ute people during a very dangerous time. He disappeared in 1869 under mysterious circumstances."
The word "disappeared" sent chills through Zara's entire body. Not died, not killed in battle, not succumbed to illness. Disappeared, as if he had simply stepped out of his time and into somewhere else entirely.
Maya paused in her reading, remembering how it felt to pour those first experiences onto the page. She scrolled down to find the section about the dreams that had sustained her through these terrible weeks:
Chapter 4: Dreams of Fire
The dreams that came after Zara's return to Boston were unlike anything she had experienced before—intensely physical encounters that felt more real than any relationship she had ever had in her waking life. Night after night, Takoda would come to her not as the spiritual figure she had grown accustomed to, but as a lover whose touch ignited every nerve in her body.
These weren't gentle, romantic interludes. These were passionate, desperate encounters between two people who could only be together in the realm of sleep. She would dream of lying with him beside the sacred lake, his hands mapping every inch of her skin with reverent worship. He would kiss her with hunger that spoke of months of separation and longing, and she would respond with equal desperation, her body arching into his touch with shameless need.
In these dreams, they would make love with an intensity that left her gasping awake with her heart pounding and her body aching for touch that existed only in sleep. She could feel everything—the weight of his body against hers, the heat of his skin, the texture of his hair falling around them like a curtain that shut out everything but their mutual desire.
He would whisper her name as he moved inside her, and she would cry out his as pleasure consumed them both. The sensations were so vivid, so completely real, that she would wake expecting to find him beside her, only to discover herself alone in her Boston apartment with nothing but the memory of impossible intimacy.
But understanding the spiritual connection didn't make the waking hours any easier to bear. Zara began to deteriorate physically and emotionally, unable to eat or focus on anything but the dreams that had become her only source of joy. Her colleagues noticed her weight loss, her distraction, her increasing inability to function in normal social situations.
It was her sister Claire who finally intervened, arriving at Zara's apartment to find her in a state that could only be described as spiritual emergency...
Maya closed her laptop and pushed back from the desk, her chest tight with the memory of those weeks of suffering. She had been writing for six hours straight, surviving on nothing but coffee and the momentum of words that wouldn't stop coming. The apartment around her felt increasingly foreign, like a stage set for a play she no longer wanted to perform.
She was walking back to the kitchen for more coffee when she heard Anya's key in the lock. The sound sent a spike of anxiety through her chest—she'd been avoiding her sister's calls for days, knowing that Anya's concern was growing but unable to face the questions she couldn't answer without sounding completely unhinged.
"Maya?" Anya's voice carried the careful, controlled tone that had become standard since Maya's return from Colorado—the voice of someone trying not to sound as worried as they clearly were. "I brought groceries. And Maya, we need to talk. Now."
Maya appeared in the doorway of the kitchen, and Anya's sharp intake of breath told her everything she needed to know about how she looked. Her sister's face went pale as she took in Maya's appearance—the oversized clothes hanging loose on her diminished frame, the dark circles under her eyes that spoke of sleepless nights, the general air of neglect that came from someone who had stopped caring about basic self-maintenance.
"Jesus Christ, Maya." Anya dropped the grocery bags and approached her with visible alarm. "When was the last time you showered? Or ate a real meal? And don't you dare lie to me—you look like you're dying."
Maya looked down at herself, realizing that Anya was right. She'd been living in a rotation of comfortable clothes that she pulled on each morning without thought, focused only on getting to her computer to continue writing the story that had consumed her waking hours. Her hair hung lank and unwashed, and she could smell her own body odor—a sharp, sour scent that spoke of depression and neglect.
"I've been working," she said, which was true but woefully incomplete.
"Working on what? Charles has been calling me because you haven't returned any of his calls in two weeks. Your agent said you missed three major deadlines. Your neighbor called to ask if you were okay because she hasn't seen you leave your apartment in over a week." Anya's voice was rising with each sentence, controlled worry giving way to real anger. "Maya, I'm not asking anymore—I'm telling you that this stops now. Look at yourself. You're wasting away."
"I sleep," Maya replied weakly, though they both knew this was misleading.
"Nightmares?"
"No." Maya sat heavily on her couch, the effort of standing becoming too much to sustain. "Dreams that feel more real than being awake. Dreams where I'm with someone who matters more to me than anything in this world, but who I can only touch when I'm sleeping."
Anya was quiet for a moment, but her expression was growing more alarmed rather than understanding. When she spoke, her voice was firm and clinical.
"Maya, I need to ask you something, and I need you to be completely honest with me. Do you believe this man is real? Do you think you're actually communicating with someone who exists, or do you understand that these might be dreams created by your subconscious?"
The question hung in the air between them, carrying implications that Maya wasn't ready to face. If she admitted the full truth—that she believed absolutely in the reality of her connection to Ouray, that she experienced their spiritual communication as genuine contact across time—Anya would insist on professional help, possibly medication, interventions that would treat their love as a symptom of mental illness rather than a miracle that transcended ordinary understanding.
"I don't know," she said finally, which was both true and false.
"That's not good enough anymore." Anya sat across from her, her face set with the kind of determination Maya recognized from childhood—the look Anya got when she'd decided something needed to be done regardless of how Maya felt about it. "Maya, you're exhibiting classic symptoms of a psychological break. Delusional thinking, inability to maintain basic self-care, withdrawal from reality, physical deterioration. This isn't some romantic spiritual awakening—this is a mental health emergency."
"You don't understand—"
"I understand that my sister is disappearing in front of my eyes while chasing fantasies about a dead man she read about in some historical documents." Anya's voice was sharp with fear and frustration. "Maya, listen to yourself. You're talking about having a relationship with someone who's been dead for over 150 years. You're physically wasting away because you'd rather live in dreams than deal with your actual life."
Maya felt tears starting, but also a flash of anger. "It's not fantasy. What I experienced in Colorado—"
"Was an emotional reaction to family history research combined with a beautiful location and some very vivid dreams. That's normal. What's not normal is coming home and completely detaching from reality because you can't let go of the feeling." Anya leaned forward, her voice gentler but still firm. "Maya, I love you, but I can't watch you destroy yourself over something that isn't real."
"How do you know it isn't real?" Maya's voice was rising now, desperation making her defensive. "How do you know that there aren't connections in this world that go beyond what we can measure or prove? You've never experienced anything like this—"
"And neither have you, until you convinced yourself that some historical research and emotional dreams were supernatural communication." Anya stood up, pacing with the nervous energy of someone who had been holding in their concerns for too long. "Maya, three weeks ago you were a successful author with a stable life and a clear sense of reality. Now you're talking about spiritual connections with dead people and literally starving yourself because you're too obsessed with dreams to take care of your body."
"You think I'm crazy."
"I think you're in crisis, and I think you need professional help before this gets any worse." Anya stopped pacing and faced her directly. "I've made an appointment for you with Dr. Sarah Chen—she's a psychiatrist who specializes in trauma and dissociative disorders. She can see you tomorrow morning."
Maya felt the blood drain from her face. "I'm not going to a psychiatrist."
"Yes, you are. Because if you don't, I'm going to have you committed for a psychiatric evaluation. Maya, you're not functioning. You're not eating, you're not taking care of yourself, you're completely disconnected from reality. That's grounds for involuntary psychiatric hold."
"You can't do that."
"I can, and I will if you don't accept help voluntarily." Anya's voice broke slightly, showing the fear underneath her determination. "Maya, I'm terrified that I'm going to come over here one day and find you dead from dehydration or malnutrition because you were too lost in fantasies to take care of yourself."
The words hit Maya like a physical blow. She looked at her sister's face, seeing genuine terror mixed with love and desperation. Anya wasn't being cruel or dismissive—she was watching someone she loved disappear and doing whatever she could to save her.
"What if you're wrong?" Maya whispered. "What if what I experienced really was something more than psychology and research?"
"Then we'll figure that out with professional help. Dr. Chen has experience with people who've had profound spiritual experiences—she won't automatically dismiss everything as delusion. But Maya, even if some aspect of your experience was real, your current state isn't sustainable. You're going to die if you keep this up."
Maya realized that Anya was right about one thing—she couldn't continue the way she had been. Whether her connection to Ouray was real or psychological, her current state was destroying her body and her ability to function in any meaningful way.
"I'll go to the appointment," she said finally. "But I need you to promise me something."
"What?"
"Promise me you'll read what I've been writing before you decide that everything I experienced was delusion. Promise me you'll at least try to understand what I'm going through before you write it off as mental illness."
Anya was quiet for a moment, clearly torn between her concern for Maya's mental state and her desire to support her sister in any way possible.
"I'll read it," she said finally. "But Maya, I'm also going to that appointment with you tomorrow. And we're going to talk honestly about getting you the help you need, regardless of what I think about your writing."
That night, for the first time since returning from Colorado, Maya forced herself to eat a small meal and take a shower. Not because she felt any better, but because Anya's words had made her realize how close she was to a complete breakdown. Whether her love for Ouray was real or imagined, she couldn't honor it by destroying herself.
But as she lay in bed that night, clean and fed but still aching with emptiness, she whispered to the darkness: "Ouray, if you can hear me, if this is real, I need you to show me how to survive this. I need you to help me find a way to live in both worlds, because I can't exist in just one anymore."
The response came not in words but in the sudden warmth of the medallion against her chest, and in dreams that felt like gentle hands holding her together while she slept.