Bzz bzz bzz...
The world ended not with a bang, but with a buzz. A low, persistent hum tunneled through the cottony layers of my nostalgic dream, pulling me from a freefall I hadn't realized I was in.
I'd been dreaming of tidal waves, of being swallowed by a sea of happiness, but as the buzzing grew louder, it broke the image apart into harmless shards of moonlight on the curtain of frosted glass.
My eyelids peeled open, sticky with sleep, and the sound sharpened. It was no longer a hum, but a frantic whirring, a miniature engine powered by six tiny legs and a set of shimmering wings.
A bee, fat and fuzzy, was performing a dizzying aerial ballet around the glass heart of my room's illumination. It circled the glowing bulb, its wings a blur against the polished glass. It was drawn to the false sun, a prisoner of its own instinct, endlessly tracing a frantic circle in the still air.
The sight was stupidly absurd—a tiny, winged creature mistaking a man-made star for the source of its purpose, its fretful buzzing a perfect soundtrack for a day that had yet to begin.
I watched, mesmerized. The dream's sweet nostalgia was replaced by a kind of wonder, a fragile spell broken by a force so small. This single creature, a small bringer of chaos, had pierced the heart of my subconscious and stolen the most peaceful dream I had cherished in years.
Just like that, the dream was gone, replaced not by the drone of the winged thief, but by a long-distance memory. It was a moment when my heart had found peace, a feeling frozen across time, so vivid it felt as if I were living it all over again.
I could feel the warmth of the sun on my face, the scent of the countryside on a beautiful morning, and hear a laugh I hadn't heard in years—the sweetest laugh of a girl who could no longer be mine.
They were memories from my high school days—a love that was never returned—resurfacing as a sweet and bitter wound in the quiet of my bedroom.
But the memory wasn't what I had just dreamed. In my sleep, we were walking side by side, our laughter filling the morning air. It was a perfect, peaceful future, one I had spent years imagining. The reality, however, was a different kind of memory.
The scene was the same—the sun-drenched road, the scent of a new day—but in reality, we were miles apart, connected only by the thin thread of a phone call. I remember the exact moment, her voice a soft tremor against the morning breeze.
"Did you ever...?" she began, her words a quiet whisper in my ear, as if she were pleading for an answer to a question she was afraid to ask, only to become a soft, melancholic sigh.
"If only things had been different back then..." she said. It was the sound of a beautiful future slipping away, a final, painful farewell disguised as a simple wish. The words hung in the air, a broken whisper I could never complete.
And as I lay in my bed, it was that memory, that final, unanswered plea, that forced its way into my conscious mind. It was a beautiful, painful ghost I had no choice but to face again. The buzzing of the bee had pulled me from the dream at two in the morning, and now its frantic dance around the lightbulb was the soundtrack to my quiet torment.
From there, I lay in the half-light, the memory of her voice a constant, replaying loop. For a moment, the regret was a sharp, physical pain—a hollow ache in my chest that took my breath away.
Then, it gave way to a cold, creeping shame, a silent film of every misstep and failed word I had ever said, each one a nail in the coffin of our almost-future.
The clock on my nightstand glowed, a cruel beacon marking the passing hours: 3 a.m., then 4. With each chime, I could feel the distance between us widen, a quiet space opening between who I was and who I might have been.
So came the tears, hot and silent against my cheeks, a final surrender to a love that was gone. I passed the remaining hours in a haze of regret, a silent vigil to a beautiful ghost.
The dawn finally broke, painting the glass wall with the promise of a new day, but it felt more like a sentence. It was Monday morning, and the first order of business was not love or second chances, but the simple, unromantic duty of getting up and ready for another start to a new week—one that threatened to blur into familiar routines, movements slipping by without leaving much behind.
My body was still, but inside, the weight pressed in all at once, as if time had drawn closer than it should have. The lack of sleep was a heavy blanket draped over my shoulders. Every step was a deliberate act of will, a fight against the constant pull of the floor. My eyes, gritty and sore, saw the world in a hazy, distorted blur, a stark echo of the dream I had lost.
I moved through my morning ritual on autopilot, a ghost in my own apartment, until I stood at the top of the staircase. The world began to sway slightly, a subtle vertigo born from five hours of regret. My head felt light, my limbs heavy and uncoordinated.
I felt a disorienting sense of detachment, as if I were watching myself move through a dream. I took the first step down. It was a struggle. The second, a miss.
Time, which had been a slow, cruel march for five hours, now snapped into a surreal slow motion. My foot found only air. The world tilted, the sound of my alarm fading into a distant, muffled hum.
A familiar scent—the sweet perfume of a country morning—filled my senses, so real I could almost taste it. My mind, in a final, desperate act, called up a vision of the past, the dream—the one that had been stolen.
I saw a sun-drenched road, a wide, easy smile, and heard a laugh I hadn't heard in years. It was a beautiful, peaceful future that wouldn't ever come true. Yet, with a shocking, impossible clarity, the warmth of the sun on my face felt real, the grass beneath my feet felt real, and her hand in mine felt real.
The world fractured. The sharp, cold pain of the fall never came. Instead, the smell of fresh-cut grass grew stronger. The blurred memory solidified into a vibrant, living scene. And as my body descended, all I could see was her, standing right there, smiling at me.
"Wake up..."