The Quiet Between Worlds

The sound came again—soft, like fabric brushing against the wall. Amyah froze beneath her blanket, eyes fixed on the ceiling. Her breath fogged in the cold. She told herself it was nothing, just the house breathing, but the voice that followed wasn’t something the wind could make.

"Amyah..."

She sat up, her spine rigid against the headboard. The room was dark, except for the pale spill of moonlight through the curtains, casting long shadows that seemed to reach toward her bed. Her heart beating rapid, each pulse echoing in her ears like a drum. She waited, listening, straining to hear beyond the silence. Nothing. Just the hum of the night pressing against her windows, and the distant sound of a car passing on the street below.

"I need to meditate," she said, her voice barely above a whisper, as if speaking too loudly might summon whatever had called her name.

Inhaling deeply, she closed her eyes, her fingers gripping the edge of her blanket as she focused on her breathing. One breath in, one breath out. Slowly, deliberately, she calmed down, and immediately entered her mind's world. It was dark, just like how it always was—a vast emptiness that had become familiar over years of practice. This was supposed to be her safe space, the place where she found peace.

"Let me see you," she whispered into the void.

And then, she heard it, wind at first brushing softly against her skin, like someone breathing against it, raising goosebumps along her arms. Then came a chuckle, a slow, eerie chuckle which somehow sounded like hers—the same cadence, the same pitch, but twisted into something that made her stomach turn.

"Itssssss tiiiiimeeeeee," the wind whispered, the words stretching unnaturally, echoing in the darkness of her mind.

Her eyes snapped open, her meditation shattered. She tried to steady herself, to convince herself it was just stress, just her imagination running wild after too many late nights. Eventually, exhaustion won, and when she finally drifted off, the dream came again.

She stood in the hallway of her childhood home. The wallpaper peeled like dead skin, revealing dark wood underneath. The floorboards creaked beneath her bare feet, each step echoing too loudly in the confined space. Wind rattling the door at the end of the hall, whispering her name over and over like a desperate prayer. When she opened it, her hand trembling on the cold brass knob, she found herself staring into her own bedroom—same moonlight filtering through the same curtains, same blanket twisted at the foot of the bed, and in the bed, her own body slept, chest rising and falling peacefully.

The wind whistled in her ears as she stared at her own sleeping body, watching herself breathe, watching herself dream.

The next morning, her neighbor found her sitting on the porch swing in her nightgown, eyes wide and unfocused, her bare feet dirty. "Rough night?" he asked.

She blinked, uncertain, trying to piece together how she'd gotten there. "I… don't remember waking up."

He laughed gently. “Maybe you’re just sleepwalking again.”

Sleepwalking. That was what the doctor called it, too. But each night, the dreams became clearer, more vivid, more real. She saw herself standing somewhere she shouldn't be—on the street corner three blocks away, in her childhood home that had been sold years ago, in the attic she never used, by the lake at the edge of town. Each version of herself whispered the same thing: Wake up.

One evening, she decided to stay awake. She brewed strong coffee, the bitter smell filling her kitchen, lit every lamp in the house until it blazed like a lighthouse, and waited. She sat in her bedroom chair, determined to catch whatever was happening to her. Midnight came and went, each minute crawling by. At 2:07 a.m., the lights flickered once, then twice, before steadying. The curtains lifted as though someone had walked past, though all the windows were closed.

In the corner of her eye, she caught something—a flicker of movement that made her breath catch. She turned to look at it, her body moving before her mind could process the action. Facing her mirror, she stared at it, certain she saw movement, before freezing in place.

Like a staring contest, she looked at her reflection.

Then her reflection moved.

It tilted its head, the motion smooth and deliberate, its smile faint, a slow, familiar smile, but eerie in a way that made her skin crawl. The glass shivered as the reflection raised a hand and pressed its palm against the glass from the inside. The sound hollow, like wind hitting a windowpane.

Hesitating, Amyah reached out, trembling. Their fingertips met through the cold surface, and the glass felt like ice beneath her touch.. For a heartbeat, the world tilted. The light buzzed louder, an angry wasp trapped in the bulb. Her reflection leaned closer, close enough that she could see every detail of its face—her face—and whispered, "It's time."

The next thing she knew, morning had come, and sunlight filled the room. Everything looked the same inside—her furniture, her pictures on the walls, her coffee mug still sitting on the table. But everything was off outside; the house across the street was gone. Vanished, replaced by trees that looked ancient, their gnarled branches reaching toward her window. The neighbor's porch swing was empty and rusted, the paint peeling away in long strips. The air smelled older, quieter, like a place forgotten by time.

She wandered outside, her legs moving on autopilot. The houses had shifted, their colors drained to shades of gray and brown. Only the trees seemed alive, their leaves trembling in a wind she couldn't feel against her skin.

A faint sound carried through the silence; a woman's voice calling her name, distant and distorted.

She turned, searching for the source, her head swiveling frantically. And there she saw it, her reflection shimmered faintly in the window of an empty house in the street. It smiled at her, that same unsettling smile.

Amyah's chest tightened, her legs losing strength, threatening to give out beneath her. She turned around to run back to her house, but stopped midway, catching sight of something that made her blood run cold. She turned to another old building to look, and she saw her reflection again, this one staring at her deeply, unblinking.

Her heart running wild now, pounding so hard she thought it might burst, she turned to another house, and another. All had her reflections staring at her—some laughing silently, others mouthing something she couldn't understand, others looking anxious and afraid, mirroring her own terror.

"It's just a dream," she cried, her voice trembling as she ran toward her house, her bare feet slapping against the pavement.

Reaching her home, which now stood alone, isolated, she looked up at her bedroom window. There, backlit by an impossible light, her reflection stared back, waiting.

"What do you want?" She cried, her voice raw and desperate.

Silence.

"Leave me alone!" The words tore from her throat.

A chuckle came from everywhere at once—from the windows, from the trees, from the very air around her. Somehow she knew it was all her reflections laughing, a chorus of her own voice mocking her fear.

"Wake up!" The reflection in her house called.

She pinched herself hard, feeling the sharp bite of pain, the proof of reality. "I am awake!"

The reflection smiled wider, showing too many teeth.

"It is timeeeeee," it sang, the word echoing from every direction.

The air stirred, brushing her face, soft as breath, carrying the scent of something old and forgotten. And somewhere between the echo and the silence, as she stood surrounded by a thousand versions of herself, she finally understood:

Some dreams don't end when you wake up.