Like a Dream Revisited

I was in that place once more.  I felt my skin tingle at the prospect and looked for her.  Only a soft light in the distance could be found, so I made my way over, footsteps making no sound on the dark featureless landscape.  It took some time, how much I cannot say as I had no point of reference, but then there she was growing on the horizon, holding a glowing orb.  I approached and smiled, but she looked concerned.  "I found this in the darkness, did you make it?"

"No, but I've seen it before.  Would you mind?"

I reached for the orb and she handed it to me.  As soon as I touched it and her hand the scene inverted to a bright shallow sea, stretching as far as the eye could see in all directions.  The orb, now a pitch black ball, fell into the water.  I reached for it, but it was gone.

"I'm beginning to think we are not alone here." We both nod in agreement.

I reach for her hand and she smiles and holds it in her own.  "A walk on the beach?"  She laughs and agrees.  The water begins to recede beneath our feet revealing sand, and a tube of glass running deep into the ground where the orb had landed.  To our left the shore developed, with palm tress and mountains in the distance.  To our right the sea deepened, waves now growing and then crashing over our toes.  We walked along in silence for a minute, soaking in our new surroundings, so familiar.

"I need to stay the night."  She looked somewhat surprised and squeezed my hand a little.  "I mean, of course, right?"

"No, I mean halt it, stop it in its tracks.  It is growing out of control, finding itself in places it should not be with more and more frequency, it needs to be contained."

She looked concerned, but then her concern seems to shift to something else.  "I met someone."

He let go of her hand. "How? In some senses we are not alone, but I thought in others we would always be."

Her eyes pleaded with him to understand.  His eyes conveyed a pain as of yet unimagined. This pain seemed to flicker for a moment in his eyes before they ran cold and then tired all in the blink of an eye.

"I have seen countless lifetimes with you by my side, and even when you were not there, a piece of you was, inspiring me and keeping me company in the back of my mind, in a place something like this.  I cannot fathom what comes next, nor will I ever be able to. I cannot stay for this."

Tears filled her eyes, but he remained ostensibly unresponsive. "Please."

"Some things cannot be undone."

With that he turned away.  He took one step down the beach, and then another. On the third, he began to close his eyes, and as he did the world unmade itself piece by piece. He felt as if he were falling as time slowed to a crawl, eventually every possible movement was granted its own second. For what seemed like an eternity his eyes continued to close. The shoreline had disappeared, as had it all. Even the sense of movement faded, until there was only darkness. And in the moment he realized he had failed, it was over for him. 

She watched for a moment as the space between them grew infinitely, and while his motion slowed, hers did not, but it seemed as if the world around her was matching his pace. Other people that had sprung into being did not slow however, and they seemed blissfully unaware of the change   So she lived out her life as she saw fit, ever aware of the gears of reality grinding to a halt all around, the dream perpetually ending, only moments away from a collapse that always approached halfway before it arrived. As each grain of light drained one by one from the framework of the reality they had made, sometimes she would think of him.