"Not again...."
She stepped into the spacious movie theater, already knowing what awaited her. She realized where she was the moment the elevator button refused to obey and selected a floor for her. She had returned once again to one of her countless nightmares, but this time she was aware of it. She knew the outcome and that there was no escape from here. There never had been. Not until she woke up, and until then, she suspected, there was far too much time left to spend aimlessly wandering and hoping that perhaps at some point she would see a way out. Unfortunately for her, things never worked out that way. She was like a fish caught on a hook, struggling against her inevitable fate.
Not this time. She refused to repeat the vicious cycle. If this place was so determined to toy with her, then she was ready to laugh in its face and choose her own fate—the only potential way out: to end her dream before it ended her. She grabbed a shard of glass from the dusty floor. Isn't that how it works in lucid dreams? You imagine an object, and "poof," it magically appears before you. Simply brilliant. She cut her ring finger. She was testing the waters—what would it feel like to hurt herself within her own consciousness. There wasn't much pain, but as soon as the thin crimson trickle poured from the cut, the movie theater was no longer the abandoned place she knew it to be. She spotted something—or rather, someone—who didn't belong here, hadn't been here, or whom she hadn't noticed until now in her panic. There was no way for her to be sure. She could only approach him and watch as the blond locks, bent over a large book, turned in her direction.
"Who are you?" she asked instinctively. The blond-haired man smiled in response.
"My name is Sam. Look."
He pointed to the book he was holding. At first glance, it looked like a perfectly normal book of fairy tales.
"Do you see these letters? The title here?" He flipped through the large pages. "Or this? The letters, their shape, the coloring and shading—every tiny detail is my handiwork," he exclaimed proudly.
The girl looked closely. They were indeed beautiful. You could tell how much effort had gone into writing them. She was genuinely impressed.
"They're lovely," she said, smiling warmly at him, but the boy's face clouded over.
"Don't make fun of me! You don't need to feel sorry for me or string me along with kind words. I know I'm a nobody, and what I do doesn't matter at all."
"That's not true!" she protested. "I really do think they're wonderful!"
And to prove her point, she flipped back a few pages and showed him what had moved her the most.
"What you've written has such grace and warmth… You should be proud of yourself."
This time the boy smiled—and what a smile it was. Something inside her clicked, as if someone had swapped the film reel of what she was seeing.
"I have to go…" she murmured without realizing it, leaving his radiant smile behind her. The shard of glass landed back on the dusty floor—its time had run out. She returned to the elevator and reached to press one of the buttons, but, as always, it was not her will that prevailed, but that of the elevator.
It ascended slowly through the floors until the light stopped at 42. The doors opened silently, revealing a large hall and a long corridor that curved to the left. She stepped out of the elevator again and hurried forward. On both sides, she could see all sorts of people dressed in expensive clothes, sipping their drinks and chatting with one another. She didn't belong in a place like this. She felt exposed—literally. She pulled down on her black skirt, which felt too tight and too short. Where on earth had she come from? She couldn't believe she'd actually been dressed like that until now. Her pace quickened. A man in a red suit raised his glass in a toast and called out lewd invitations to her, but she walked right past him. She heard him and his drinking partner discussing her mockingly. She tuned out their voices. This was her dream! At the end of the seemingly endless hallway, her old friend—the elevator—was waiting for her. She sighed and stepped inside. The people with their cocktails vanished from her sight, and the journey into the unknown resumed.
55th floor.
Lounge bar and Café.
The only source of light was a spotlight. The subdued blue beam swept the entire length of the room, packed to the brim with people talking loudly over the music. Except there was no music—or at least she couldn't hear it. So why were they shouting? It didn't matter, and she wasn't interested. She stepped out of the elevator and scanned the room for a possible exit.It was a good thing the dark hindered her ability to see what she was wearing, though she no longer felt the constricting discomfort of the skirt-like garment. She pushed her way through the crowd packed around the tables. She walked back and forth several times to the bar in the center of the room, but to no avail. There was no sign of an exit anywhere—not until she saw a man being dragged inside by security from a small corridor on the right. She hadn't noticed it until now. Wait a minute—why would security drag someone inside instead of kicking them out? She shook her head. It didn't matter. She headed toward the narrow corridor, and that's when she finally saw it—the door that would lead her out of there. Of course, it didn't lead anywhere other than the elevator, but as long as she could get away from the crowd and the inexplicably loud people, everything would be fine. She waited for the doors to close and reached to press one of the buttons. She laughed at herself. As if that were possible.
An hour later—or at least it felt like an hour—she was standing in the elevator again, crouched on the red-carpeted floor. She'd lost count of all the places she'd been. None of them led anywhere. A vicious circle. She was once again caught in the elevetor's trap. She sighed, huddled in a corner of the metal box that was carrying her who knows where. The doors opened again, and she stepped out slowly, without even glancing at which floor she was on. What did it matter anyway?
This time she found herself in a wide, unsettlingly white hall. All the doors and windows—every possible opening—were plastered with newspapers and barricade tape.
The place resembled an abandoned mall—or rather, one that hadn't opened yet. She looked around every corner and approached every barricade tape, but to no avail. She was about to give up when a short man walked past her. He was dressed from head to toe in a white protective suit, as if a dangerous virus had spread through this hall. She decided not to pay him any further attention, mainly because she felt a chill run down her spine, but his words made her stop in her tracks and look at him again.
"I have to close off all the exits… I have to seal everything off…"
From beneath the white mask covering his face, the words came out more like a quiet mutter, but the more he repeated them, the clearer they began to sound. That was all she needed. If this man was trying to seal off every nook and cranny, then a way out must exist somewhere out there, in the sea of white and colorful stripes. She began to search intently, impatiently even. The tiny spark of hope that had almost gone out flared up with renewed strength. Somewhere, anywhere—it didn't matter, as long as she found it. The man's monologue grew fainter and fainter in her mind, lost in the endlessly spreading ribbons.
A moment. Just a single moment. That's all it took for her to notice it, to sense it, to take it in. Her heart raced. She tore through the lone ribbon swaying in the breeze. She slipped through the narrow crack and froze in her tracks. Literally and figuratively. Her face was stung by the cold wind. Soft white snowflakes danced across her cheeks. The soothing silence of the winter night enveloped her. She was… free… She… had succeeded… She had escaped.... She had found the way out... Had she changed her fate...?
She left her footprints in the blanket of snow. A direction? There wasn't one. She simply kept moving forward, taking slow steps. She wasn't rushing anywhere—not right now, anyway. She no longer felt the cold. Whatever she was wearing, it protected her. The only garment she needed—freedom.
Before her lay a secluded park, a garden nestled behind a small church. She was awestruck by several wooden benches, embraced by the snow. But as soon as she approached them, as soon as she looked more closely, they were no longer empty, and the snow had been replaced by the warm late-afternoon sun. The blanket of snow had given way to a colorful carpet of dewy grass and fragrant flowers. From the benches, curious children's faces—strangely familiar—watched her. As soon as she spoke to them, the words seemed to pour out on their own in a sequence she already knew.
"You've made it… You've done it…"
As soon as they heard this, the children got up from the benches and surrounded her. She looked at them more closely, taking in every detail. A blonde girl and boy, holding hands happily. The same fair-haired couple, but this time the boy was wounded, though no one would have even suspected it, judging by his broad smile. A lone fair-haired boy, grieving for his other half. And countless others like them—each couple distinguished by its own peculiar marks. One of the girls tugged at her sleeve, her honey-sweet voice asking the question that was written in all their eyes.
"How long have you been alone?"
She fell silent for a moment, as if all her memories had flooded back at once. "For... ten years..." she replied quietly, and the tears she had held back until then streamed down the young woman's rosy cheeks.