Triple-shot espresso was a terrible cure for a brain that had spent the night running a marathon in its sleep, but since society frowned on corporate designers napping under their desks, it was my only option for surviving Tuesday.
The Daily Grind was a sensory overload at 8 AM. The place was crammed with over-caffeinated urbanites; a dense fog of roasted beans and steamed oat milk layered over the ambient crooning of indie folk. My jaw-cracking yawn was lost in the screech of a milk-steamer, clinking ceramic mugs, and the buzzing hive-mind of conversation.
Trapped in the shuffling line toward the counter, my eyes wandered to this week’s display of local artists above the mismatched seating. The gallery was a chaotic kaleidoscope of styles and subjects. Once, I had even submitted my own painting—a Neo-impressionistic piece inspired by a recurring dream. It hung there for an embarrassingly long week, serving as a glaring wall-bound reminder of my artistic hubris—mercifully departing as my first and only sale.
Normally, I’d pretend to be a well-adjusted adult who cared about over-caffeinating, but concealer could hardly mask the deep purple under my eyes. Worse, my cuticles were raw from panicked, soapy scrubbing at 5 AM to remove stubborn smudges of midnight paint lodged beneath my fingernails—irrefutable proof that my subconscious had spent a solid week running an unauthorized, hyper-fixated art studio in my apartment. Whatever my hands found first in the dark—charcoal, lipstick, sriracha from the fridge—I’d spend my nocturnal hours obsessively etching into any surface available. Intricate textile weaves, high-collared waistcoats, jagged-toothed grins, and low-budget horror-film creatures with ravenous, soulless black eyes. My damage deposit was so forfeit.
Weird dreams were nothing new, but the last year had progressively worsened, and with my head too full of impossible things, my drywall became a canvas. Living a double life as a frustrated, sleep-deprived historical-fantasy illustrator was exhausting.
Seeking any distraction to keep my bleary eyes from crossing, I whipped out my phone. A digital banner flashed across the glass—a notification from the dating app my best friend, Heather, had practically held me at gunpoint to download.
New message from Mark.
I tapped it open, squinting at his perfectly polite, textbook-flirty greeting. On paper, Mark was a certified catch: conventionally hot, stable job as an accountant, volunteered with rescue dogs, and—miracle of miracles—actually used punctuation in text messages. He was everything a rational, functional human being was supposed to want. Yet, staring down at his message, my emotional response was a resounding, cavernous nothing.
Every guy I swiped right on, every match I’d sat across from at a trendy cocktail bar or awkwardly mingled with on a double date left me completely numb. A persistent, uninspiring sense of absence, like walking into a room and knowing you forgot something crucial but having no idea what it was.
“Dani! Large maple latte, extra shot!”
The barista’s shout shattered my thousand-yard stare. Shaking off the drowsy disappointment, I shoved my phone into my bag and shuffled toward the wooden pickup counter, my hand automatically reaching for the steaming cardboard cup of life-saving fluids.
As my fingertips hovered an inch above the lid, a prickle needled down my spine. The fine hairs on both forearms stood up in a rush.
Thunk. A heavy blow struck the glass.
I knew better than to look, but my gaze pulled toward the window anyway. Outside, a bird pecked at the pane—a strange, ragged creature with frayed, thinning feathers and eyes caked with clumps of black goop. It struck again, harder, until a splintered crack formed at the tip of its chipped beak, striking until its tiny head twisted sharply.
The sickening sight triggered a flinched back-step, but my heel caught on the strap of my laptop bag. Everything twisted off-balance—fingers slipping from the steaming latte, eyes shutting to brace for a burning splash, spine careening directly into a solid chest—
But the scalding wave never hit. A hand swooped through the air with an impossible, liquid grace that completely defied physics. Long, elegant fingers clamped firmly around the cardboard sleeve, effortlessly plucking the cup out of its death-drop before it painted the tile.
“Careful there,” a voice murmured.
I turned around, a breathless apology already queued, but the words dried up when I saw him.
He was a Grecian sculpture brought to life—if marble were carved from sunlight. Golden hair caught the coffee shop’s fluorescent lights like a literal halo, framing high cheekbones, a sharp jaw, and a slight half-smile, like he was this close to whispering a secret. Even in a relaxed linen shirt and sunglasses tucked into his open collar, he stood out from the drab morning crowd like a Louvre masterpiece hung on a suburban living room wall.
The noise of the coffee shop—the screech of the steamer, the clatter of mugs—dulled into a distant, muffled hum. A comforting heat rolled off him, and a nostalgic sense of being welcome pulled at my pulse. I knew I was staring, but the longer I looked, the harder it was to look away.
“God, I’m so sorry,” I stammered, my face burning as my brain tried to reboot. “I completely lost my balance. Thanks for the save.”
“No harm done,” he said, stepping closer to offer my cup back. His eyes locked with mine—vibrant, unnatural amber—and his smooth, charming smile widened.
As I reached for the latte, our fingers brushed. Even on a stifling September morning, he wore sleek black leather gloves. Searing heat bled through the leather, seeping into my skin faster than the steaming coffee cup between us.
With that heat came a dizzying, breath-stealing déjà vu. An insistent whisper in my head: I know you.
My brows furrowed as the words spilled past my lips, completely unauthorized. “Sorry, you look so familiar. We’ve met before, right?”
For a fleeting, beautiful second, his amber eyes softened. The tug at the corner of his lips flared into a sudden, radiant hint of profound relief. I felt it too—the quiet comfort of an exhale held for a century.
Then, like a switch flipped, his brightness shut off. His features flattened, his posture stiffened, and he snatched his gloved hand back as if I’d burned him.
Before I could apologize or ask what I’d said wrong, he turned on his heel. The golden stranger melted into the sea of morning commuters, the bell above the door jingling softly behind him.
I stood like an amateur statue carved in the middle of The Daily Grind, holding my rescued latte while a hot flush of mortification burned my neck. When I glanced at the window, the pane was smooth. No goop, no crack, no bird. Just my own bewildered reflection staring back. Maybe I’d hallucinated the meet-cute too.
A few corporate types in line gave me annoyed looks. I took a slow sip of my coffee, letting the liquid heat sting my tongue just to prove I was still awake.
Typical Dani. Can’t even accept a smooth save from a gorgeous stranger without completely ruining a human connection.
Being a natural introvert meant that small talk drained my battery faster than a vampire at a blood bank. So a morning meeting reviewing feedback from a fussy client was a brutal way to start an already exhausted Tuesday.
“That could’ve gone worse, I guess,” Asha, my desk-neighbour, murmured as her heels clicked against the hallway linoleum. “But a monitor might get Hulk-smashed if another client asks for a design with ‘more movement.’ Why does no one understand loading speeds?”
“I’m rooting for smashing. We need new monitors,” I replied, forcing a smile.
We rounded the corner near reception just as a new client, Mr. Fulton, swept past with our Account Director.
The air turned to ash in my throat.
For a terrible, panicked heartbeat, the corridor warped. Fluorescent lights flickered, and Mr. Fulton’s human features glitched like a broken screen. Black feathers erupted through his skin, pinning down his tie. His jawline stretched forward into a hooked, yellow beak that snapped at the empty air, his eyes dilating until his irises were swallowed by pitch-black.
My knees threatened to buckle, palm catching the wall to regain my balance.
Sleep deprivation, I told myself, eyes dropped to the linoleum as I willed the vision to dissolve. Overactive imagination strikes again. Look away.
Years of my childhood lost to therapy sessions and sedated hazes taught me that you never tell people you see monsters in suits. You learn to smile, look at your shoes, and lie until they leave you alone.
A metallic vibration shattered the paralysis. My phone illuminated with a text from Heather:
Reply to Hinge guy yet? Meeting at 7, right? Don’t bail on me, Dani. Get out of your own way!
With a deep breath in and out, I forced the avian nightmare into a mental box labelled insomnia-induced-weirdness, and I slammed the lid shut. When I looked back up, Mr. Fulton was just an ordinary man with dull brown eyes, laughing politely at a joke.
I typed back a lie: Working overtime. Had to cancel. And then I sent Mark the same lie. After the morning I’d had, there was no energy left for pretending. My mission to find a plus-one to Heather’s wedding next summer to avoid the awkwardness of being the single friend paused once again.
Heather’s fiancée, Arjan, had proposed in June. They were a good match—an enviable complement of opposites—but it also meant seeing less and less of the only person I trusted, another reason I’d entered the gladiatorial arena of online dating to find ‘the one.’ Maybe ‘the one’ was a myth. Or maybe, like usual, I was the problem.
By the time I escaped the office, endured the crowded transit ride home, and kicked off my work heels in my small apartment, the clock had ticked into the evening.
Instead of collapsing onto the couch to catch up on my favourite space opera, an insistent itch drove me straight to my drawing desk. Immersed in the calming flow of lines and shading, anxiety melted away.
Within an hour, a startlingly lifelike sketch of my coffee shop Adonis stared back at me. Golden curls, teasing smirk, and those intense, amber eyes that felt as familiar as a forgotten memory. Just to further distract myself from the lingering terror of Mr. Fulton’s bird face, I inked my Adonis into a starship uniform. He made a dashing starship captain.
The urge to create a painted version struck—to capture the warmth of his gaze in vibrant, golden acrylics. A blank canvas in the corner of my apartment practically begged for it, but the clock glowed an unignorable warning: 10:00 PM. Sleep now, or regret life tomorrow.
Away went the pencils and sketchpad, and I bid my muse goodnight. I washed smudges from my hands and performed my mandatory bedtime lockdown—double-checking the deadbolts and securing the window latches tight, just in case my sleepwalking art compulsion decided to take me on an outdoor excursion.
I toggled on my noise machine, the simulated roar of heavy rain drowning out the city street noise. Slipping under the covers, I closed my eyes, hoping for a dreamless night.
As exhaustion finally crushed my restless thoughts, the darkness shifted—and the dream claimed me again.
It always started in a dry, barren field, an expanse of endless nothing beneath a bruised iron sky. Then came the pressure—a tickle of warm breath on the back of my neck, a touch shivering down my spine. Familiar voices I couldn’t remember whispered my name: Danielle.
Spinning in circles, I searched the void, but found no faces, no bodies to touch. Only another voice calling from just behind me. Only the weight of invisible hands tracing lines across my skin, dragging me toward a choice that materialized from the dust.
To my left, thick, vibrant vines crawled out of the cracked earth, weaving together to form a path that pulsed with a warm, radiant gold. It smelled of summer, crushed wildflowers, and a blinding, solar heat that promised safety. To my right, the earth split with a sharp crack, throwing up jagged, shimmering black stones that smoothed into a velvet-dark trail. Cool, quiet, patient, bittersweet with evening rain and rich autumn spices.
Every night the dream came, a choice tugged in my chest. Some nights, I’d step toward the gold. Other nights, my feet found the stones.
But I never arrived. Before I could discover where either path led, a devouring bitterness interrupted. The stench of wet earth, stagnant water, and a forgotten, crumbling rot. Haggard hands erupted from the dirt, sharp nails digging into my ankles with agonizing strength, dragging me down into a dark abyss that tasted like copper and dust.
In that moment of near-death, I woke up.
Sitting at my desk in the dark, my lungs finally expanded with real oxygen. It took a moment to realize I was out of bed. Like every night I had the dream, my subconscious had marched me straight to the nearest art supplies. At least this time it was a pencil instead of toothpaste.
Meagre moonlight bathed the desk, barely enough to illuminate my sketchpad. Dusty graphite smudges painted my fingers a deep charcoal, save for the stinging, thin line of crimson welling from a fresh paper-cut along my index finger—a casualty of a clumsy, asleep-at-the-page flip.
Groggily dragging feet to the kitchen sink, I washed my hands, wincing as the soap bit into the cut. The apartment was completely silent. Everything was exactly as I’d left it, undisturbed. My brain had only let me wander as far as my desk.
Returning to the desk, I flipped the lamp switch, blinking against the sudden, aggressive brightness. The fresh page I’d turned to was blank, save for the single droplet of my blood smeared near the margin. I flipped back a page to see what I’d drawn in my trance.
My heart leaped into my throat. Pounded. Nausea rolled through my stomach.
Staring back at me from the textured paper was a nightmare. It was a twisted parody of a jolly elf: bony, emaciated arms ending in talon-like claws, beady eyes glinted with eager malice, and a matted, filthy beard parted by a snarl of needle-like teeth. The creature wore a slouched, loose cap.
My stomach rolled in another nauseous wave as I realized my blood from the previous page had bled through the paper, staining the creature’s headwear. A red cap. The macabre detail made the accidental colour feel horribly deliberate.
Shuddering with a mix of disgust and a whole lot of panic, I ripped the page from the binding, crumpling the pencilled horror into a tight ball. Squeezed until the anxiety settled. Part of me wanted to tear it into a thousand pieces, maybe burn it, but a strange instinct told me to hold onto it. I shoved the paper ball into my desk drawer, slamming it shut.
After re-checking the deadbolts and window latches with unsteady hands, I practically sprinted back to bed, pulling the blanket over my head to hide from the dark.