Ven watched the trees dance before him. It hadn’t taken him long to realise there was something odd about this forest. Whenever he focused his vision on a point in the distance, he could see the figures merge, becoming indistinct and assuming a form that was totally different from before.

  Ven wanted to cry out, but something blocked him when he tried. As if he were underwater, his body refused to allow his mouth to open. Was he underwater? Was that why the light was filtering so strangely across his vision? He was neither hot nor cold, and his whole body felt heavy.

  Am I dead?

  Ven struggled to remember where he had been. In the hut with Iova— the foreigner— and Rae, drinking themselves silly. Rae flushed, his hair messy, looking both sheepish and eased to see him… Imagining it eased the worried gnawing in Ven’s gut.

  Upon thinking of that glorious visage, the image flashed before him, so real that he might reach out and touch Rae’s cheek. It appeared so suddenly, as if Ven himself had summoned it.

  Ah, so that’s it. I’m dreaming.

  Realising this, Ven knew he would be waking soon, so he didn’t worry about the strange sights anymore. It was amusing, wandering about, observing whatever images his subconscious presented to him.

  Rae was the most stunning of all. They wandered the forest, shining eyes meeting his as they took in the spring bounty. The blockage in Ven’s voice had subsided somewhat. They spoke, but the words came muddled, and both Rae and Ven often forgot how the conversation had started or where it was meant to end up.

  It being a dream, Ven had no qualms about taking advantage of the situation.

  Under a waterfall, he pushed Rae against the cliff and forced a kiss on him. The feeling was the closest to real he had felt in the dream realm. Real warmth, the movement of tongues, something pressed to his thigh!

  However, when he opened his eyes to gaze upon his lover, the face wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t the heady cocktail of adoration, embarrassment, lust, and anticipation that Ven had become accustomed to. Rae was looking up at him, pupils dark and lips panting, but there was something off about his expression. It was like they were two actors in a play, and Ven had said the wrong line.

  Certainly, Ven would have put this matter aside and continued to enjoy himself— it was only a dream, after all— had Rae not pushed him away.

  Ven tumbled into the water, feeling the pressure of it hammering down on him, but not the wetness nor the cold. His vision filled with froth as he tumbled away. When he came to, he was in another indistinct place, and the phantom Rae was gone.

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  Huh? Was that crossing the line? Even in my own dream?

  No matter how sincerely Ven thought his apologies, he couldn’t summon Rae back. No matter. He’d be seeing the real thing soon enough.

  Instead, he committed to something more ambitious.

  When Ven’s mother had passed, he had been little more than an infant. And what he had retained of her were more impressions than memories.

  The version of her he imagined was like a copy of his sister, bronze skin and chocolatey hair in thick curls. Peppered in were all the traits of his nieces, that hadn’t resembled the late Shak, Nuna’s freckles, Lim’s almond eyes… The woman’s form shifted as he assessed which traits he found the most convincing.

  Imagining a woman so young and pretty married to his father struck Ven as unfitting, so he added a few lines to her forehead and crow’s feet around her eyes. She smiled warmly at him, and Ven could almost believe this was the real thing.

  “Mama?”

  “Yes, my babe?” Her voice, low and gentle, was one of the impressions he still maintained.

  “It’s nothing, I just wanted to talk a little,”

  “Talk about what?” She asked, cupping his face in her hands.

  Once again, the words wouldn’t come. This dream realm… Whenever he wanted to say something that really counted, it would get stuck in his throat.

  “Talk about the one you were just walking with?” the mother-mirage asked.

  You saw that?

  She hadn’t. Of course, Ven knew that. But she was a puppet of his subconscious, so she nodded.

  “He’s very handsome. I’m glad you were able to find someone you like.”

  “Someone I like…” at last, some words slipped out, “yes, I’m very lucky,”

  “But aren’t you worried?” she asked.

  “Worried?”

  “Aren’t you worried that you’ll never see him again, that you’ll never leave this place?”

  “Of course not, mama. This is only a dream, after all.”

  When the mother-mirage heard those words, her face morphed from the perfect form Ven had designed into a snarling, animal grin.

  “Just a dream?” She said, in a voice that was wrong.

  Ven leapt back before her claw-like hands could swipe at his cheek. Then he broke into a run through the grey-brown realm. His brain hadn’t conjured a backdrop for his meeting with his mother. There was nowhere to hide and nothing to defend himself with.

  Soon, something clamped onto Ven’s ankles, dragging him to the ground. She loomed over him as he lay there, petrified. Her face had shifted into something else entirely. He couldn’t recognise it.

  “You will never see him again,” she said.

  Ven couldn’t speak, but the corrupted mirage-mother spoke as if she knew his thoughts.

  “You won’t ever leave this place. And he’ll forget about you,”

  As she spoke, an image flashed before Ven’s eyes. Rae with someone else. Rae with the beast, with Sebi Bejuk, with complete strangers... Then, the wicked smirk of the mirage mother. Despite the terror and rage gripping his heart, he remembered a simple truth.

  This is just a dream.

  He pressed his eyes shut and tried to ignore the feeling of claws on his skin. He thought of light, harmless things: light filtering through trees, warm nights by a fire, playing with his nieces…

  Eventually, whatever creature had invaded his dream disappeared. When Ven opened his eyes, he was lying alone in a forest, almost like the one at home. As he lay there, he pondered on what he had seen, on what it might say about his subconscious mind.

  I must have been sleeping for a long time by now…