--Hypnopompic--

I had a dream where I was just a character in a book. I was waiting to be read, sitting on a chair, when a woman walked up to me and asked me the time. I was surprised because I could see her face and then I noticed that I could see everyone's faces. The woman told me that my condition wasn't real, it was all fictional. I went to look in a mirror so I could see my own face, so I could see what I looked like after so many years.


The woman told me that I couldn't do that. "We don't have reflections," she said, "because we don't have souls. We aren't real, you and I. They just made us up to appease some part of themselves. And they read us over and over again and make us relive their nightmares, so they can sleep better."


I didn't believe her, though, and went to look for a mirror. I found myself in a ramshackle house, where the windows and doors were boarded up, harsh rays of sunlight flowing through the cracks. A house out of a horror movie. I slowly climbed the stairs of the house until I got to the top and found the woman. She was holding out a book and asked me to read it. "Read it and believe," she said. I opened the book, but I couldn't read a word. I told the woman this and she grew angry. Clutching the book, she pushed me down the stairs.


And as I fell, I realized I was dreaming and woke up.