Chapter Text

Chapter I

SOMNIA

The insomnia had gotten worse over the past few days. Being a project lead was starting to take its toll—no matter how committed he was to the idea that work and life should have balance, falling asleep had become nothing more than a distant memory.
Without knowing it, the solution came to him one night while driving. A voice on the radio announced the miraculous pills designed for dreaming.

“Tired of not being able to sleep? The new Somnia pills give you exactly what you dream of—literally.”

Pharmaceutical science had made great strides in recent years.

A drug capable of inducing sleep, of offering the peace of rest without needing to rely on atypical antipsychotics used to treat mental illness. No—science had taken a leap forward and created Somnia, dream pills. The mechanism was simple: once taken, the “patient” would experience a long, pleasant, restorative sleep. And the dreams—those were the best part. One could have them without waking up groggy or overwhelmed. The goal was to enjoy them, fully and without interruption.

Of course, minds of above-average intelligence could enjoy vividly real experiences—unlike those unfortunate enough to be below the curve. And naturally, they weren’t cheap. They weren’t for everyone.
But for Xeno Houston Wingfield, they were a promising, elegant solution. The idea of drifting off without turning into a pharmaceutical zombie seemed like the best possible answer. So, he ordered them.

The effect was almost immediate.

Xeno lay down in bed with no emotional expectations. He knew the placebo effect worked wonders on weaker minds, but he wasn’t one of those. He needed measurable results. And Somnia promised exactly that: clinical, restorative rest... with no bullshit.

He closed his eyes. Took a breath.
And when he opened them again… he was no longer thirty-five years old.

In front of him stretched a white laboratory. Curved architecture. Bright light. Not a single impurity. He recognized the modules, the interfaces, even the handwriting on the reports.
But what he didn’t recognize—was himself.

Young. Twenty-five, maybe. Hair longer, not a single strand of gray. Shoulders lighter. Eyes not yet hardened by impossible decisions.

His younger self was analyzing a device he had never built—but somehow understood. His gaze was fixed on the artifact, fingers moving with near-automatic precision.
But he couldn’t feel his body.
It was like watching himself in a recorded file… only he knew this wasn’t a memory.

He turned his head and saw his reflection in a glass case.
But it wasn’t the younger Xeno staring back.
It was him.
The current one. The insomniac. The exhausted one.
The man who had bought pills just to escape himself.

“This isn’t… how it’s supposed to be,” he whispered.

But the voice wasn’t an echo—it was pure thought, resonating through the glass.

The scene shifted with no transition, as only happens in dreams.

The hallway was long. White. Endless. No doors in sight.
His younger self walked ahead with steady steps.
At the far end, leaning with insolent ease against a wall that shouldn’t be there, stood a figure dressed in black.

Xeno didn’t recognize the face at first. There was no threat in the expression, but there was control.
As if he had been the one to summon Xeno here—not the other way around.

“You’re late, brainiac.”

The voice hit him with disarming familiarity. It didn’t shout, didn’t challenge.
It simply existed—somewhere between consciousness and memory.
As if this scene had happened a thousand times before.

The blond man’s crooked smile was sharp, arrogant, and somehow… protective.
As if he were watching Xeno, waiting for him to understand something on his own.

Xeno—the younger version, but with the mind of the man he was—frowned. He studied the figure as if he were a problem with no known variables.

“Do we… know each other?”

The blond with amber eyes looked at him in silence for an endless second, arms crossed, unmoving. Waiting, maybe.
And then, he straightened and spoke.

“What do you think?”

There was no answer. There didn’t need to be.
The silence grew dense—almost physical.

Then the golden-haired man turned and began walking down the white hallway, never looking back.

Xeno tried to call after him, but he couldn’t remember his name.
No—he didn’t even know the boy’s name.

And then he woke up.

The first thing he noticed was the smart system turning on the lights.

Xeno opened his eyes without resistance.
No struggle with his body.
No weight in his skull.
No trembling in his hands.
He breathed in… and the breath was deep. Oxygenated. Whole.

“Well, damn,” he muttered.

He sat up slowly. No stiffness. No trace of fatigue.
He was fully awake.

He looked around as if seeing his room for the first time. Everything was in place, just as he’d left it—but it felt cleaner, more… distant.
As if remnants of the dream world were still drifting in the corners.
As if that strange journey through his subconscious was still lingering at his fingertips.

The memory of the dream was vivid—but the details were hazy.
The white lab. The strange reflection.
The figure at the end of the hallway.
The blond face. The words spoken.

“You’re late, brainiac.”

Xeno frowned.

He went to his terminal and activated the facial recognition interface.
He pictured the face in his mind.
Strong jaw. Sharp eyes. Crooked smile. Thick lashes. Tempting, thin lips.
He ran the search.

Nothing.

He tried again, reconstructing from his personal databases—colleagues, enemies, subjects of study…
Still nothing.
His brain—capable of recalling quantum physics formulas without blinking—couldn’t link that face to a single name.

“Who are you?”

Even so, his body was at ease.
It was as if that nameless, historyless man had given him rest.
As if he had taken care of him—even within a dream.

An hour later, Xeno was walking down the corridor of NASA’s Autonomous Development Division, a cup of recycled coffee in hand and a slightly more relaxed expression than usual.

“First night on Somnia?” asked one of his colleagues, a stubborn and occasionally unserious young man named Senku.
“You look… less grumpy than usual.”

Xeno raised an eyebrow but didn’t reply.

“How was it?”
That was Brody—mechanical engineer and key liaison with the military sector.
Xeno looked at him. The man’s embedded glasses shimmered as they caught the lab’s artificial light.

“They say the first dreams are random,” Brody continued.
“The system scans your neural impulses and builds environments out of them.”

“I rested,” Xeno admitted plainly.
Then, choosing his words carefully, he added:
“I dreamed of a lab. It looked like mine… but it wasn’t.”

“You dreamed about work?”
Senku snorted, clearly disinterested in small talk but too curious about the so-called dream pills to ignore the topic.
“They say high-IQ profiles create human projections more easily. Almost like they’re real.”

Xeno hesitated.

“No… I remember it clearly. But yes. There was someone. A man. I don’t know his name.”

A brief silence followed—interrupted by an alert flashing across the suspended screens.

“Reminder: Joint NASA / Military State Event — 7 days”

“The big shots, finally,” Brody muttered. “You’ll be presenting, right, Dr. Xeno?”

Xeno nodded, though his attention was elsewhere.
He stared at the floating notification as if it were speaking to him directly.
He was still thinking about the blond man, and that irritated him—because he didn’t know how to answer himself.
He shook his head. He wasn’t going to waste more of his valuable time on something that was nothing more than imagination.

It wasn’t real.

Right?

Yes… impossible.
It was just a dream.

And without another word, he kept walking down the hallway.

With a strange and empty calm in his chest.

Xeno didn’t make decisions without data.

And while his body felt rested, that wasn’t enough.
That night, he didn’t go back to bed right away.
He activated the biometric sensors embedded in his home system and began analyzing the previous night’s readings.

Stable blood pressure.
Brainwaves showing REM dominance during 62% of the cycle.
Steady pulse.
No signs of sleep paralysis or intermittent awakenings.
Everything… pristine.

Even better than expected.

Sitting in the dim light of his private office, Xeno rotated the Somnia capsule between his fingers.
The vial was small, opaque, marked with microscopic print only someone with his trained vision could read:

“For minds capable of containing the impossible.”

“Nice piece of pseudoscience coming from pharmaceutical engineers,” he muttered.

He opened the container and pulled out a new capsule.
Placed it on a rapid-analysis tray and scanned it.
Composition intact.
Nanodiffusers active.
No detectable hallucinogens.
Nothing that could explain the emotional residue still vibrating in his chest.

The blond’s face returned—burned into his retina like an afterimage.

Xeno tried again. Terminal open. Facial simulator engaged.
He altered variables—actors, musicians, military officers, politicians, memories, photographs.
Changed angles, mirrored versions, side profiles.
Tried blending the faces of known soldiers.

Nothing.

“You don’t exist… and yet I can’t stop thinking about you.”

He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.
Took a deep breath.

The logical thing would be to wait.
See if the pattern repeated.
Record a second experience for comparison.

And yet…

He stood up.

Went to his bedroom.
Picked up the capsule.
Held it between his fingers for a moment.
Hesitated.

And swallowed it.

Dry.

Soft music—strings and synthesizers—floated between the tables of the glass-domed restaurant.
Outside, the artificial sky of the metropolis displayed a programmed aurora, painted in deep oranges and impossible violets.
Inside, the air smelled of spiced wine and flowers suspended in microvases, hanging gently in midair.

Xeno arrived alone, wearing an impeccable black shirt, lightly tinted glasses, a deep garnet tie, and a relaxed smile that crowned the elegance of his presence.
He was turning thirty.
And although he didn’t say it, he felt… complete.

He had barely taken his seat when he began to speak to an invisible listener—
as if he already knew someone had to be listening.

“Senku Ishigami joined the team this week. Japanese. Young. So brilliant it makes even me uncomfortable.
I’ve never seen anyone solve an energy model that fast.”

A service drone placed the starter glass in front of him.
Xeno ignored it.

“And it’s nearly official. Helium-3. Lunar project.
I’m going to be named lead. It’s only a matter of time. A few days.”

Then, a second glass appeared before him—
offered not by the drone, but by a hand.

Xeno went quiet.
Was he dreaming again?
He focused on the person holding the glass.

The crystal trembled slightly, but the sparkling liquid inside didn’t spill.
The gesture was elegant—almost ceremonial.

Seated across from him, as if he had always been there:
the blond man.

A wine-colored jacket, lips tinted a subtle purple, and a smile crossing his face like a well-kept secret.

Xeno recognized him instantly.
Not with doubt, not with surprise—
but with that uncomfortable certainty reserved for impossible things.

He shook his head.
He had read the label on the pills front to back.
Side effects might include dry mouth, mild appetite loss—
not recurring dreams.

“Let’s toast,” said the blond, raising his glass and pulling Xeno back into the unreality of the dream.
“To good news… and to pulling it off, Xeno.”

Xeno tensed.
He looked at the glass.
Then at the man.
Closed his eyes for a moment.

“This isn’t real,” he said, softly, shaking his head.
“None of this is real. I know it. My mind built this.
You’re in my dream.”

The blond shrugged. Unbothered.
He wasn’t offended.
He didn’t argue.
He was just playing.

“Then name me,” he offered, smiling like someone with no limits.
“If you created me, you should be able to baptize me… right?”

Xeno looked him over, head to toe. Analytical. Inquisitive.
He tested a name silently.

“Max… no. Sounds like a dog.”

He paused, frowning.

“Robert… doesn’t fit either.”

The blond pulled out a slender cigarette—wrapped in metallic paper—and placed it theatrically between his lips.
He didn’t light it.

Xeno snatched the cigarette from his mouth, snapped it in half, and left it beside the empty plate.
His gesture carried annoyance… but not true anger. More like a need to restore order.

The blond narrowed his eyes. Smiled. Bitter and amused.

“You’re acting like the sniper here,” he murmured, resting a hand under his chin, studying Xeno from below.

Xeno sighed in resignation.
Lowered his gaze for a second, then looked up again—
with a graceful smile.
Reluctantly giving in to the game.

“You’re going to hate this…
but there’s no name that really fits you.”

The blond didn’t get upset.

He just smiled wider—
that impossible mix of arrogance and affection.

“Stanley Snyder,” he said, like revealing a useless trivia fact.
“Try not to forget it.”

Xeno repeated it under his breath.

“Stanley Snyder…”

It was such a plain name it evoked absolutely nothing.
No political references. No scientists. No criminals.
Stanley Snyder was, at best, a background character in a secondary simulation.
Empty.

And yet there he was—solid, real—smiling with that crooked mouth, like he was waiting for something to click.

The music shifted.
The ambient sound of the restaurant became a soft melody—floating piano and synth.
The dance floor was empty.
The lighting above them warmed, as if the dream were adjusting to someone else’s desires.

“Xeno,” Stanley said, standing and offering his hand.
“We should dance. I bet you’ve outgrown those two left feet.”

Xeno let out a short laugh.
Not sarcastic.
Real.
Surprised at its own existence.

“I remember you’re the one with two left feet,” he replied, raising an eyebrow.

Where had that come from?

It wasn’t a memory. It couldn’t be.
He had never seen Stanley awake.
There was no reason he should know that Stanley couldn’t dance—
or that they’d ever tried.

But in that instant, he didn’t question it.
Didn’t analyze it.
Didn’t try to explain it.

He just smiled.
Reached out his hand.

“All right… let’s dance.”

His fingers brushed Stanley’s—warm, steady.
One more second. One simple step—

And the world snapped shut,
as if someone had closed their eyes from the other side of the dream.

Xeno bolted upright in bed, heart calm.
Hands clenched into the sheets,
he looked for his reflection in the vanity mirror.
No sweat. No tremors.

He was simply awake.

And Stanley Snyder was still in his head.

Not as a fabrication.
Not as a construct.
But as a real person—
an impossible figure who refused to fade.

And that… terrified him.