Jean dreamt.
The sun was warm on his skin.
He stood on a beach—white sand stretching in both directions, palm trees swaying gently in a breeze that carried the salt smell of the ocean. The water was impossibly blue, clear as glass, lapping at the shore with a rhythm that spoke of peace.
He knew this place. They had come here once, years ago, before everything. Before the world changed. Before the nightmares began.
But this was not a nightmare.
He looked around, confusion flickering at the edges of his mind. 'Where am I? How did I—'
Then he saw them.
His mother and father lay on the sand nearby, stretched out on colorful towels, soaking in the sun. His mother's eyes were closed, a content smile on her face. His father rested beside her, one arm behind his head, looking more relaxed than Jean had seen him in... how long?
Further down the beach, near the water's edge, two figures splashed and laughed.
Ben. His brother.
Julie. His sister.
They were younger here—maybe ten or eleven—their faces bright with joy as they chased each other through the shallows. Their laughter carried on the breeze, pure and untroubled.
'This is a dream,' Jean thought. 'It has to be.'
But it felt real. The sun on his skin. The sand between his toes. The sound of his family, happy and whole.
His mother opened her eyes and turned to him. Her smile was beautiful—the smile he remembered from before, the one that had faded in recent years under the weight of worry and fear.
"What are you waiting for, son?" she called. "Go have fun!"
His father looked up too, meeting Jean's eyes, and nodded. A simple gesture. A blessing.
Jean felt something loosen in his chest.
He got up. Walked toward the water. His siblings saw him coming and squealed with delight, splashing him before he could even reach them. He laughed—actually laughed—and dove in after them.
For a moment—for one perfect, suspended moment—there was no apocalypse. No monsters. No Voice. No Somnum.
Just family. Just love. Just joy.
And a single thought emerged in his mind, quiet and desperate:
'I hope this happiness never ends.'
Jean dreamt again.
He was small. Five years old, maybe. Standing in a hospital corridor, holding his father's hand.
The walls were white. Too white. The lights hummed overhead. And somewhere beyond a closed door, his mother was waiting.
"You ready?" his father asked, looking down at him with gentle eyes.
Jean shook his head. He was nervous. Scared. He didn't know what to expect. Twins, they had said. A brother and a sister. He was going to be a big brother—but what did that even mean?
His father chuckled softly and lifted him into his arms. "Come on. Let's go meet them."
The door opened.
The room was warm, softer than the corridor. His mother lay in a bed, tired but glowing with a light Jean had never seen before. And in her arms, wrapped in blankets, were two tiny bundles.
"Come, honey," his mother said, her voice weak but filled with love. "Come have a look at your brother and sister."
His father set him down, and Jean approached slowly, cautiously. He peeked over the edge of the blankets.
Two faces. Tiny. Perfect. Eyes closed, sleeping peacefully.
His brother. His sister.
He was a big brother now.
Something swelled in his chest—fear and wonder and love all tangled together. And a thought emerged, as clear as the day outside the window:
'I hope this happiness never ends.'
Jean dreamt again.
A classroom. Brightly colored walls covered in alphabet posters and children's drawings. Small desks arranged in neat rows. And everywhere—strangers.
His first day of school.
Jean stood in the doorway, frozen. His mother knelt beside him, her hand on his shoulder, but he barely felt it. All he could see were the other children. The ones who didn't know him. The ones who might not like him.
"I don't want to," he whispered.
"You'll be fine," his mother said gently. "Just give it a chance."
She left. The door closed behind her.
Jean found a desk in the corner and sat, making himself as small as possible. The other children talked and laughed among themselves. No one looked at him. No one spoke to him.
He wanted to go home.
Then a shadow fell over his desk.
He looked up.
A boy stood there—about his age, but different somehow. His clothes were slightly mismatched. His hair stuck up in odd directions. And his smile was so wide, so genuine, that it seemed to light up the entire room.
"You look lonely," the boy said. "I'm Lucas. Want to be friends?"
Jean stared at him.
Lucas didn't wait for an answer. He pulled up a chair and started talking—about his dog, about the game he played last night, about how the classroom fish looked lonely too. He talked and talked, and Jean found himself listening, then responding, then laughing.
By the end of the day, they were inseparable.
Even now, years later, they still were.
And a thought emerged in Jean's mind, warm and wondering:
'Still friends? I just met this person, but still... I hope this happiness never ends.'
Jean dreamt again.
This one was quick. A snapshot. A moment.
He was walking home from school—maybe ten years old—when he heard a sound. Small. High-pitched.
A meow.
He turned. In the alley beside his house, tucked behind a dumpster, was a kitten. Tiny. Scruffy. Its eyes were huge in its small face, and when it saw Jean looking, it meowed again.
His heart melted.
He approached slowly, knelt down, reached out a hand. The kitten sniffed his fingers, then rubbed against his palm. It purred—a tiny motor of love and trust—and Jean knew in that instant that this creature was his.
He carried it home. His mother wasn't happy at first—"We don't need a cat, Jean"—but the kitten looked at her with those big eyes and meowed, and something in her softened.
Within weeks, she was buying the good food. Within months, the kitten slept at the foot of her bed.
And a thought emerged in Jean's mind, simple and pure:
'I hope this happiness never ends.'
Jean couldn't tell anymore.
Dream after dream after dream. Moments from his life, pulled from memory and played before his closed eyes. The beach. The hospital. The classroom. The kitten. Each one perfect. Each one a fragment of happiness he had almost forgotten.
He stopped trying to separate them from reality. Stopped questioning. Stopped thinking.
He simply... lived them.
These were the best moments of his life. Why would he want anything else?
Years passed in the dreams.
The kitten grew into a cat—a beautiful gray tabby with golden eyes. It slept on Jean's bed every night. Greeted him at the door every day. Purred in his lap while he did homework.
Then, one afternoon—
The truck came too fast. The cat darted across the road, chasing something Jean never saw. There was a thud. A cry. Silence.
Jean stood on the sidewalk, frozen, staring at the small body in the street.
And a different thought emerged.
Not warm. Not wondering. Not hopeful.
Cold. Hollow. Broken.
'Why?'
The word echoed in the void of his mind, repeating, growing, consuming everything.
'Why?'
'WHY?'
***
In reality, Jean did not move.
He lay in a deep slumber, suspended within a sleeping pod that hummed softly in the absolute darkness. The pod was sleek, futuristic—designed to sustain life indefinitely, providing oxygen which needed to survive while the mind drifted through dreams it would never remember.
Beside him, three more pods sat in perfect alignment. Silent. Occupied.
The room held no light. No sound. No time.
But there was presence.
Hovering above Jean's pod, a transparent orb pulsed with silver light. It was the same orb that had watched him from the clouds. The same orb that had waited, and waited, and waited.
Now its waiting was over.
Slowly, gently, it descended. The surface of the pod offered no resistance—the orb phased through it like mist through fog, passing through metal and glass and technology as if they were nothing.
It hung above Jean's chest for a single heartbeat.
Then it sank into him.
Jean's body jerked—a sharp, violent spasm that arched his back and curled his fingers. His eyes, closed, twitched beneath their lids. His lips parted in a silent gasp.
Then stillness.
The orb was gone. Inside him now, merging with whatever lay at the core of his being—his soul, his essence, the thing that made him Jean.
He did not wake.
But somewhere, in the depths of the Somnum, something shifted.
And the dreams continued.
Or his Nightmares!