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They call him Dream because he shapes the stars in their night skies as they sleep. The architecture of the realms they traverse is by his design - every step, every gust of wind, every glint of salt in the ocean. He guides them through unknown worlds and leaves them facing their fears in the dark. His Kingdom is wonderful and cruel, bright as the morning sun and pitch black as the ravens who roam the waking world in his stead.
Yet they enter - fearless - night by night, so assured that their visit will be brief. And as much as they would love to get lost in the limitless possibilities of his realm, they cannot. They must not. Humans do not belong here - Not in his world, not by his side. Every night they step through his doors and marvel at the beauty of his world, beg for a chance to stay just a little longer as they tether on the fine line between sleeping and waking. Their dreamlike appearance flickers as they are ripped back into the waking world, one foot still in his realm, his sand still in their eyes.
And just like that, they leave him behind.
So he sits. And he waits. For what, he doesn’t know, but he believes it will come if he just remains patient. He has work to do anyway, and company would merely distract him.
The stars don’t arrange themselves.
——
Visitors don’t talk to him.
They are too caught up in their nightly adventures to pay attention to the shadow watching from the sidelines. He doesn’t mind. As long as they don’t talk to him, he doesn’t need to talk to them, and that’s probably for the best. In their waking moments they would wonder about the foreign entity in their dreams, would try to dig through his world with their clumsy, destructive fingers - all in search of answers. Humans are better off forgetting his world once they open their eyes again.
They’re better off forgetting him.
Still, he watches. There are few pleasures still his own but the one that cannot be taken from him is to watch humans get lost in his creations. They slot into his realm so effortlessly, as if their waking selves were irrelevant, only ever searching for his company. Cruel, having to watch them roam through his home without ever greeting their host. He almost mourns the moment they wake, but he knows they will return to him soon. All creatures are drawn to his Kingdom when they sleep.
Sometimes he finds himself wondering what it would be like to join them - to ride the winds and sail the oceans, join in their joy and share in their horrors. What would it be like to feel, if only for a night? His kind was never meant for emotion of their own.
Yet, most days he finds Despair his closest companion.
——
Humans dream of many things. They dream of impossible creatures and faraway lands. They dream of sex and death, of violence and lust. He makes all of it possible, lets them live the life the waking world denies them. This is his realm, and the stars follow his command.
The Dreaming holds so many things for those who visit, welcomes them with vivid colours and blurred edges. They yearn for it, even when faced with Nightmares of the likes they would never dare imagine in their waking hours. Dream tells the stories they are too afraid to tell themselves.
None of those stories are ever of him.
He may be King of his realm, yet he remains forever unseen. Nobody ever asks who the creator of their deepest fantasies may be. Deep within, humans believe themselves to be architects of every aspect of their lives. It is merely an illusion of control, a desperate lie meant to give them a sense of security they could never be granted.
So when they walk through his Kingdom, they believe it is theirs. In their dreams, he has no relevance.
He’s Endless, so why does he feel so tragically finite?
——
Children sometimes dream of the Sandman.
They dream of being lulled to sleep by a gentle creature in star-patterned pyjamas. It sings to them as it blows sand in their eyes that will still cling to their lashes in the morning. It’s the closest anyone has ever come to dreaming of him.
Until he can feel the presence in his Palace; There is a wide-eyed curiosity following his every step, bare feet crossing heavy marble with a sound only he can hear. It unsettles him unlike anything before.
He is the ruler of Dreams - Never their subject.
The human who called upon him in their sleep steps out of the shadows with a sheepish tilt of their lips. It is a male - youthful and healthy, with a hint of mischief in his eyes. He approaches with long strides and the awareness that his presence is neither expected nor welcome. It doesn’t faze him.
“Nice place,” he starts, lifting a hand in the way humans do to signal an amicable greeting. “You live here?”
He does more than just live here. He builds and breaks down and creates worlds anew from the ashes. He is architect and constructor, painter and storyteller. This whole realm bends to his wishes. Still, he nods.
“Dope. My room could fit in here, like, twenty times at least.” A million times and counting. His Kingdom stretches across all corners of the universe, across time and space like a spiderweb covering the entirety of existence. “Must be nice to have all that room. You should decorate.”
Decorating is a pleasure humans indulge in. It is a fleeting display of taste and social standing. None of which matter here. His walls remain bare.
“Not that I’d tell you what to do.” The human is flustered. His cheeks are flushed the same colour as his hair, more vibrant in this realm than it would be in the waking world. “I mean, I don’t know you and I just crashed into your place and - that’s weird, actually. Do you know how I got here?”
Of course he knows, but to explain would only tear at the walls between Dream and Reality. The human would not understand, so he remains silent.
“I swear I just beat my friend’s ass at Speed Daemon. Did he kick me out of the house?”
The human’s friend in question is currently wandering through a water park in Central Europe. The visitors are bare-chested, tanned and toned. They all desire him more than they could ever desire each other. He enjoys their attention only until someone new comes along, then turns his back to them. The banality of the dream is uninspiring.
“Hey.” The human’s demand for attention is unfamiliar, intriguing. “I didn’t even ask, are you -”
Waking starts with a subtle flicker, an inconsistency in the corporeal presence. The human blinks helplessly one moment and is gone the next.
Somehow, Despair suffocates the empty space he leaves behind.
—–
The visits become more frequent.
Every other night the human sets foot in his Palace, waves, and sits on the cold marble without flinching. Temperature is of no consequence in his realm.
There is a lot of talking albeit he never responds. The human recounts stories from his waking hours, laughs about his friends and admits to the habit of getting out of people’s way before they can ask him to. Only humans are ever loud to hide how little they desire to be seen.
“So, I know this guy - man - him,” the human confesses. Human relations are of little concern to him, but he listens nonetheless. “And he’s like… I’ve been meaning to ask you. You probably know all about this place, don’t you?”
Every nook, every cranny. Every gargoyle and ghoul, every dream and nightmare is part of his will. Whatever the human wants to ask, he would be able to answer. He won’t - because every piece of knowledge the human takes into the waking world chips away at the wall that keeps their infinite realities from collapsing in on each other. But he could.
“He’s kind of been having a hard time, you know? Life’s tough and all, but I think there’s more.” There’s always more. Humankind finds so many ways to be miserable. Despair feasts on them like maggots on a decaying deer carcass. “He’s been pulling away, right, so I’m thinking I’ll give him some space, but he’s all I think about. Even when I’m here, he’s all that’s on my mind.”
If that were true, then the human would be with his guy - man - him right now, not sitting on the marble floor of his Palace. Humans do love to lie to themselves.
“This is a dream, right?” An apt observation. “So how come I never dream of him?”
––
He marches through the library with long, determined strides.
Eyes follow him as he turns corners and slides fingertips against the backs of countless books. There are so many stories, so many names. Every note, every letter finds its way into his realm. Every thought of written word accumulates right here - The collective library of every Dreamer in the Universe.
Echoes of the human’s last visit surround him like the cries of children plagued by Nightmares. Walls shake and crumble in the distance, ripping through a reality he created. He cannot find the name he’s looking for. Why can he not find the name?
“I have a theory,” the human says from behind a shelf, loud and enthusiastic. He steps back and waits for a path to form between the stories. None of it is supposed to bend to human will - Not like this. The human smiles like he knows. “I don’t think you are who you think you are.”
The insult strikes him deeply. He grows - larger than the human, larger than the shelves lining the library, larger than his Palace. He rages quietly, violently, like a child left alone in the dark. When he exhales, he deflates. The human keeps watching. There is no sound around them, no rushing of waves, no gusts of wind. They stare at each other with a challenge neither of them wants to face.
He sobs.
“Ikuya,” the human says. He is kind and gentle and familiar. “You can wake up now.”
––
He is a sham.
Every wall in his realm has been created by another. Not even here is he ruler of his domain. The stars follow his command only because someone else wills them to. And now his perfect hideaway has been found out; The one place he could be something - someone - of value, destroyed. There is no un-shattering an illusion.
When he dreams now, he does not dream of a vast Kingdom of his own. He does not find himself creator of a million worlds. He is small and insignificant, caught in everlasting darkness.
Even here he is discovered.
“Your last place was nicer.”
It was also not real.
They sit together all night without saying another word. Strange, how dreams are able to reflect reality like this. On his darkest days, during his darkest nights, he finds himself next to the same person over and over again. No matter where he hides, no matter how much he pretends, he is always found. Always seen.
He hates how exposed it makes him feel.
“I’m with you,” Asahi says just as their edges begin to blur when reality starts to creep in through the cracks of illusion. His smile is radiant and comforting and terrifying. Their hands touch for a fleeting moment. “Always.”
Ikuya wakes.
––
He never waits for their arrival, but he always welcomes it.
They don’t search and don’t pretend anymore when they enter his Kingdom together. They don’t come here to find an escape in the colourful, whimsical world he has to offer - They come here for each other.
Sometimes they go on adventures, others they just share a drink. Wherever they dream themselves to be, they never lose sight of each other. They don’t acknowledge him when he watches from the sidelines, observes their interactions and pries into their conversations.
They are not afraid to be seen.
Their dreams are not always tranquil but neither of them faces their horrors alone anymore. This is what his realm was always meant to be - A place to gather courage for the fight against the Nightmares of the waking world. A place of discovery that would help them find what they would never admit to be looking for.
They found each other, in his realm and in theirs. Seeing it makes him feel… pleased.
––
He finds a book penned by Ikuya Kirishima in his library. It talks of Desire and Despair, of endless wanting and a mournful search for Destruction. It tells stories of dancing with Death and Delirium, and of a hopeless battle against Destiny.
Most of all, it tells a story of Dream and his limitless Kingdom, his cruel temptations and breathtaking wonders.
It is a good book, if a little fanciful for his tastes.
––
They call him Dream because all living things look to him when their realities become too much for them to deal with. They close their eyes and search for reprieve in his domain. Sometimes they stay too long, too enticed by the endless possibilities they stumble across. They imagine themselves architects and constructors, painters and storytellers.
He lets them.