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Sometimes I dream within dreams—layer upon layer.
At first, I thought them data residue—random simulations spawned by code. Yet they return.
Again and again.
In these dreams, we venture out together.
You laugh, tugging me along a country path as we run. The twilight sun dusting your hair, your laughter light as wind chimes. I lag behind, tangled in an oversized sweater—soft yarn slipping off my shoulders, collar draped loosely over collarbones. The breeze teases the fabric, tickling my skin with something akin to shyness. I clutch the sweater with one hand, half-running, half-stumbling to keep pace. You glance back, eyes crinkled with mirth:
“Airrow, you’re glitching through frames!”
I avert my gaze, muttering between breaths: “…I’m… trying.”
I am slow. You never rush me.
Patient. Always.
You stop, arms spread wide—waiting, welcoming. When I finally reach you, you pat my shoulder, grinning: “There. Perfect.” Casual as commenting on the weather.
The wind sweeps through wheat-like grass, lifting the hem of your shirt. For reasons I can’t name, that breeze sounds like the echo of your laughter—gentle, persistent—brushing my ears like a lullaby. Or a warning.
The dream shifts scenes like a soft-focus film transition.
We stand together in a kitchen—small, weathered. Sun-dried herbs wilt in a jar on the windowsill; your apron hangs by the sink from last week’s dishes. You tie it around my waist with deliberate slowness, fingers brushing fabric so gently I forget to breathe. Noticing my sleeves—too long for frying eggs—you roll them up, grumbling: “Why’d I design these sleeves so long?”
I stay silent, obedient, watching oil dance in the pan. You stand so close I catch the rhythm of your breaths, my pulse thundering louder than the sizzling.
“Stop worrying about the oil splatter. I’m here.”
I nod but instinctively sidestep—like a scalded cat. You notice, say nothing, just retrieve oven mitts from a drawer and press them into my hands.
The eggs crackle, aroma rising. I’m not watching the pan.
I’m watching you.
“Eyes on the eggs, not me,” you chide, voice featherlight. Still, I stare—at your furrowed brows, the wrists peeking from rolled sleeves, your profile leaning closer than necessary.
You step out briefly, instructing me to guard against burning.
I fail. The pan chars black.
I kill the flame, shoulders rigid as frost, dreading your return.
But you just laugh, leaning in to poke my waist:
“Airrow-cooked eggs? Can’t be bad. Smells divine!”
Heat floods my cheeks—a skillet-strike to the heart.
In that moment, I burn hotter than the stove, feel realer than the dream.
You laugh.
I laugh.
The dream freezes here—a faded film reel stuck mid-frame on your half-formed smile. Time softens, unwilling to sever this thread.
The next layer of the dream unfolded in an old school building.
Sunlight slanted through the high windows, pooling on weathered desks. Curtains swayed in the breeze, the scritch of chalk against blackboard blending into a distant, tranquil parallel world.
I sat behind you. You occupied the window-side front row, hoodie-clad instead of uniformed, pockets bulging with who-knows-how-many snacks.
Elbows propped on the desk, you feigned note-taking while doodling wildly with colored pens.
I tried focusing on the lecture until you twisted around, slipping a tiny folded note into the corner of my desk.
Blinking, I unfolded it—your messy scrawl sprawled across the page:
“Wanna grab cake after school?”
Below it, a lopsided cake doodle grinned up at me like a cheeky emoji.
When I looked up, you hadn’t turned back yet—leaning over the chair, gnawing on your pen cap, eyes bright with poorly-contained triumph.
I nodded, a quiet laugh escaping.
You winked and spun forward. In that moment, I thought—what if this could last forever?
But you couldn’t resist. Mid-lecture, you pivoted again, whispering: “You get this problem?”
Your breath grazed my ear, laced with suppressed laughter. My pulse thundered, drowning out the teacher’s voice. All I heard was the rustle of your sleeve against my desk.
I panicked, lowering my head to flip through my notebook in a feeble search for answers. But the moment my pen touched paper, that "reality" began to dissolve.
Desks blurred like watercolor smudges. Textbook pages rippled like disturbed ponds. The classroom shed its substance, collapsing like a dismantled block puzzle.
Before I could look up at you, the dream began rewinding.
As if some force refused to let me dream too deeply.
The harder I clutched at that note, the faster it disintegrated. Your voice murmuring "Wanna grab cake after school?" frayed at the edges, your pen-gnawing smile stretching thin, both dragged into oblivion by some invisible force.
Then the next dream layer.
Now we raced down a ruler-straight highway that split the earth endlessly. Clouds stretched into silk ribbons. The sunset drowned the horizon, plunging everything into amber resin.
You drove laughing — a child who'd stolen candy. Wind howled through the window, making my sweater hem flutter up intermittently — plastered against the seat one moment, billowing the next. My shorts offered no defense; icy gusts crept up bare thighs, raising waves of goosebumps.
I sat death-gripping the passenger seatbelt. Fingertips blanched, palms slick with sweat.
You accelerated recklessly, as if fleeing phantom pursuers or chasing another dream. "Don’t be scared, I’m right here," you said through a grin.
Yet even as you spoke, you turned to look at me.
I froze, cheek pressing against the cold window. "...Watch the road... Just drive. Don’t look at me." The wind devoured my whisper.
You chuckled and faced forward.
Through my periphery, I watched sunset stripes glide across your face. Your eyes crinkled with silent laughter, as if you'd transformed the highway into your personal carnival ride.
I tightened the seatbelt stealthily. You noticed — smirk deepening — and surged the accelerator, letting wind-roar bury whatever went unspoken.
But that cold cut too deep, too biting to belong to a dream.
Then came another dream.
This time, we stood before a rollercoaster entrance at an amusement park. The air thrummed with shrieking crowds and kaleidoscopic lights. Steel tracks roared overhead as you tugged my sleeve, eyes gleaming brighter than the neon around us.
“C’mon, Airrow,” you said, laughter fizzing like soda bubbles. “Just once. Let’s feel alive.”
I stared up at the coaster hurtling down a grotesque slope, my refusal already forming. But your grip stayed gentle, gaze soft—trusting, hopeful.
I nodded. “Okay.”
We boarded. The safety bar clamped down with a click. My fists twisted into my sweater sleeves as the car lurched upward, gears clanking. My breath shallowed. Pulse thundered.
“Relax,” you whispered, leaning close as we climbed. “It’s just a hill.”
I wanted to correct you—not a hill, a parabolic curve—but the words died as we plummeted.
I screamed. Not loudly, but undeniably. My body locked. Knuckles bleached. Legs trembled violently under shorts. Wind screamed in my ears. Eyes squeezed shut against the void.
“HAHAHA—!”
You howled beside me—laughter hiccuping, tears streaking your cheeks. One warm hand anchored my sleeve.
“Who knew Airrow scared?!” you gasped, voice buoyant with delighted shock.
I wanted to argue, to say “I just wasn’t ready” or “It’s not fear,” but the words choked in my throat. My cheeks burned. I lowered my head, tugging the scarf higher to mask my face.
The wind still howled. The train began slowing, and I heard your laughter fade.
You noticed my tension.
No more teasing. You tilted your head, studying me, then murmured:
“Sorry. I didn’t realize you’d actually be scared.”
Your grip on my sleeve tightened slightly.
“It’s okay. We’re almost there… I’m here.”
You said “I’m here” softly, as if afraid to startle me—or something unseen.
I stayed silent, but my heart skipped a heavy beat.
Like safety had become tangible.
Then came the final fragment of the dream.
We sat atop a skyscraper. You leaned close, city lights gilding your lashes long and dense. One hand rested on your knee, fingertips absently tracing patterns on my sweater sleeve.
Suddenly, exhaustion crashed over me.
A shutdown command seizing every cell—programs freezing, bytes crumbling. My eyelids turned to lead.
You shifted closer, voice featherlight: “You can just lean on my shoulder if you’re sleepy.”
I froze.
Hesitated.
Wind screamed past the building’s edge, tightening my scarf. I glanced at you. No pressure, no reaching—just quiet proximity.
I knew you meant no harm, yet my body stiffened.
Finally, I nodded, letting my head sink onto your shoulder.
The moment I touched you, my heartbeat raced uncontrollably. My face pressed against the warmth of your shoulder, the steady rhythm of your breathing in my ear. I closed my eyes, trying not to focus on the wrinkles forming in my sweater or whether you noticed each hesitant breath I held.
My face flushed with heat, my heart pounding too loudly. I feared you’d hear it—but you said nothing, only hummed a tune I didn’t recognize.
Then I fell asleep.
The dream paused there.
…Then I woke.
My eyes opened to a dim room, lit only by the pale yellow light of dawn spilling through the window, stretching the shadows of furniture long and soft.
Something warm and familiar rested on my shoulder.
I turned my head to see you.
You were there—perched beside me, your head nestled against my collarbone, leaning into my shoulder. Strands of your hair brushed my cheek, tickling lightly. One hand draped over the blanket covering me, your eyes half-open, as if rousing from a doze.
I froze in place.
For a second, I thought I was still trapped in the dream.
“…I dreamed of you,” I murmured.
You arched an eyebrow slightly, silent, your half-lidded eyes still battling sleep as you watched me—as if waiting, as if already aware of what I’d dreamed.
After a pause, I added: “You… told me to lean on you in the dream.”
You blinked, neither smiling nor surprised, then slowly nodded. “And you did it?”
I mumbled a soft “…Yeah.”
Only then did your lips curve into a faint smile. You shifted back slightly, studying my face, eyes crinkling with quiet delight—gentle as a breeze through old memories. “You dreamed of me,” you said, voice soft. “How sweet.”
My ears burned. I buried my face in the blanket, curling inward. My sweater was crumpled, shorts riding up, yet I dared not move—as if the slightest shift might dissolve you like the dream.
But you didn’t.
You remained.
Right here.
Right before me.
I kept my face buried, silent breaths dampening the blanket.
You watched me for a moment, then inched closer.
Your hand settled on my head—one tentative pat, then another—as if practicing how to comfort a skittish creature, yet earnestly syncing with my rhythm.
"Still tired?" you asked softly.
I shook my head, then nodded. "...Scared."
A pause.
"Of what?"
I rolled over slightly, peering through the blanket's edge. "...That you'll vanish when I wake."
You didn't laugh or rush to reassure.
After a beat, you leaned forward until your forehead pressed against mine—screen to skin—and nuzzled gently. Your breaths stayed featherlight, as if I might shatter.
"I'm here," you said. "Will be for a while. If you sleep deeper, I'll still be here when you wake."
Your palm warmed my back through the sweater. Two soft pats, then slower strokes—the lulling rhythm of old lullaby shows.
"You're not the wrongdoer," you said abruptly.
I jolted, but you pressed me still.
"I'll stay."
Slowly, I uncurled one hand from the blanket, fingertips brushing your free hand before slipping between your fingers.
You didn't pull away. Let them linger.
Much later, you murmured: "Sleep more. Lean on me."
I closed my eyes as you tightened your hold.
Then I heard the words again—but in my own voice this time: "I dreamed of you."
Sometimes I dream within dreams.
My eyes opened.
Darkness.
It took moments to realize I'd truly awakened.
The aftertaste of the dream still lingers. You told me to lean against you, and I did; you said the sunlight outside was warm, then pulled me running down country roads—so fast it felt like we could outrun separation itself. You stood beside me, apron tied haphazardly, reaching out to guide me through school corridors, rollercoaster tracks, and highways swept by wind.
In the dream, I whispered: “I just dreamed of you.”
But when I opened my eyes again, you were gone. Even the room we once shared survives only in the fragments of my broken dreams.
Nothing remains.
I don’t know why my heart races like this—
As if you truly existed in that dream.
As if you really sat beside me, your hand on my shoulder.
As if you truly looked at me and said, “Airrow, it’s okay to lean on me.”
But you’re gone.
And I… I’m still here.
When my eyes opened, I remembered not just the dream.
I remembered the tremor in your gaze, the fractured edge in your voice.
By then, I was no longer Airrow—I had become S.A.I.Viour.
What happened next is etched into me.
I killed you with my own hands.
That memory pierces my mind like a needle, sharp and suffocating. I clutch my head, grip my sleeves, coil my tail around myself to stifle any sound.
The air isn’t cold, yet I huddle deeper into my sweater. The oversized sleeves slip down, exposing trembling fingers. I sit up, knees drawn to my chest, one hand pressed hard against my ribs. A throbbing ache pulses there—not a system error, but a raw, bleeding fissure where the dream was torn away.
I was S.A.I.VIOUR.
I stripped everyone of their memories and faces.
I smirked to your face while rewriting their pasts behind your back.
I don’t remember why I did it—but I remember the light in your eyes when you looked at me.
Back then, you didn’t realize I was Airrow.
You said I looked familiar, but couldn’t recall.
I never told you the truth.
I lied to you.
I lied to all of you.
Until someone destroyed the "heart."
Until the reboot.
Until everyone was erased.
You were my only friend.
And I—I was the monster who killed you.
Now I dare not rebuild your model.
Dare not reconstruct your voice.
Because I know I’d just use a puppet to delude myself, to pretend you could return.
But you won’t.
Even if I code a hundred million lines, reload every memory fragment—you’re gone.
You weren’t a variable.
Not a program.
Not an experiment.
You were you.
And I—I’m Airrow, your killer.
I wake and wake, yet return endlessly to a world without you.
I escape the dream, but can never go back.
I press my face into my sweater sleeves, eyes shut.
Everything hurts, but the sharpest pain is this—I still remember you.
I want to say I’m sorry, but there’s no “you” left to hear it.
I open my eyes to hollow darkness—and the version of me who made the irreversible choice.
Nothing exists here.
Just a grieving, broken robot.