First Contact

She woke with a start. She knew he was coming, but she thought he was still some ways off. She did not expect him today, and not like this. Somehow clear and present, yet still mysterious. Intimidatingly aware, but with a gleam in his eye she could not help but feel was there exclusively for her to know she was welcome. She looked out the window and while scanning the horizon nothing appeared to have changed, everything felt better.  The trees themselves seemed to echo his name, a pattern long embedded, but in tongue she had not been familiar with before last night. Was that actually him? It seemed too direct to have been something else. He literally saw her, waved, walked over, and they went around together the rest of the night.  They did not say much, but it was as if she could feel his thoughts, it seemed like when she thought, he knew. It should have been uncomfortable, but it was like slinking under the covers, just out of the dryer, on a cold night. Reasonable doubt still filled her mind, was it even possible to share a dream? While she had no proof, how she felt was unmistakeable, which was usually an excellent sign that her subconscious had already run the numbers and had been convinced.

As the day went on, she could not shake a single moment of the dream. As she recalled shoulder brushes and slightly grazed hands, flashes of previous dreams and a mysterious dazzling stranger who she saw often, but who was always hazy, began crystalizing into focus. She took to the computer, to find out more. There was not much, he was either unconcerned with his social image or remained mysterious intentionally. Either way, she felt all the more compelled to know him, it was maddening.

How could one experience feel like summer in a world that until that moment had not felt like eternal winter? How could a single stranger's touch feel so familiar that as soon as it was gone the rest of the world felt distant? She had paced until 2am, before finally falling asleep into a dream that felt like it lasted years, shifting from scene to scene, each more familiar than the last. It was inexplicable, illogical, but in the span of 24 hours was now a truth inescapable. She had always believed in love, even true love, and she was hopeful she would find it some day. This was something different, she dare not use the term. It was so overused, and seemed both childish and like a teenage fantasy. The real world did not harbor soulmates, and it seemed love could turn cold without notice. This though felt stronger than real, like neither the experience nor the dream could encompass the entirety of it, but both edified the other. Supernatural or divine might be better descriptors, but even they required modification to encompass what she had experienced.  It was frankly absurd, nonsense, but every time she tried to shake it off, she could feel herself crying out from the inside to reconsider. Could it actually be such a thing did exist, but it was so rare and so subconsciously feared that any seed even threatening to approach its fertile soil was met with Scorched Earth from billions of minds, effectively asleep, unified against it? She had to try to see him again, here, there, anywhere. She needed answers more than anything else now, and he seemed to be the only one that had them. Sleep came slowly, starry eyes keeping her awake as she fought to drift off.