Chapter 10 – The Ordinary Dream

The walk to Sarah’s cell felt longer than usual.

Block Nine was isolated from the rest of the facility, buried three levels deeper than even my dad’s containment area, the walls lined with reality anchors that hummed with constant power. The air down here tasted metallic and wrong, like licking batteries, and the temperature dropped five degrees with every flight of stairs.

I stopped outside her door and took a breath.

The locks disengaged one by one, seventeen heavy bolts sliding back with mechanical precision, and I pushed the reinforced door open while already bracing myself for whatever nightmare scenario she’d cooked up this time.

Warm sunlight hit my face.

I blinked and stepped through the doorway into my kitchen—not her cell but my actual kitchen from home, down to the peeling linoleum and the faucet that dripped every three seconds. Morning light streamed through the window over the sink, catching dust motes in golden beams, and the smell of fresh coffee filled the air along with something sweet baking in the oven.

“Good morning sleepyhead.”

Sarah stood at the stove wearing an apron over pajamas, her hair pulled back in a messy bun, and she looked so normal it was genuinely unsettling. No extra joints, no wrong angles, just a pretty woman making breakfast in domestic bliss.

I opened my mouth to call out the illusion but she turned and smiled at me with such genuine warmth that the words died in my throat.

“I made pancakes, your favorite, and there’s bacon in the oven.”

My feet moved on their own, carrying me to the small dining table where two plates were already set with silverware and folded napkins. A vase with fresh flowers sat in the center, probably daisies or something equally wholesome.

This was different from her usual tactics.

Sarah brought over a plate stacked with golden pancakes and crispy bacon, setting it in front of me before leaning down to kiss my forehead. Her lips felt warm and real, no trace of that supernatural cold that usually clung to her.

“Eat up, you’ve got work in an hour and I don’t want you skipping meals again.”

I picked up my fork and the weight felt right, the metal cool against my palm, and when I cut into the pancakes they were fluffy and perfect with butter melting between the layers. I took a bite and the taste exploded across my tongue—sweet and rich with just a hint of vanilla.

This was highkey the most elaborate illusion she’d ever created.

“You’re quiet this morning.”

Sarah sat across from me with her own plate, tucking one leg under herself in that casual way people do when they’re comfortable, and she ate with normal human mannerisms instead of her usual predatory grace.

“Just tired I guess.”

“You work too hard, I keep telling you that.”

She reached across the table and squeezed my hand, her fingers warm and calloused in a way that suggested she actually used them for normal things like gardening or opening jars.

“Someone has to pay the bills.”

“I know but you never take time for yourself, when was the last time we just spent a day together doing nothing?”

The scary part was how easily I fell into the rhythm of this conversation, responding on autopilot while my brain tried to process what game she was playing here. No fear, no horror, no cosmic dread—just domestic normalcy stretched out like a trap I couldn’t quite see the edges of.

We finished breakfast and I helped her clear the dishes, our movements synchronized like we’d done this dance a thousand times before. She washed while I dried, bumping hips occasionally and laughing about nothing in particular.

Time slipped forward in that weird dream logic way.

I was getting ready for work, buttoning up a shirt that wasn’t my usual uniform but some office casual thing, and Sarah straightened my collar while standing on her toes to reach. She smelled like vanilla and cinnamon, warm and inviting instead of ozone and copper.

“Have a good day at work, don’t let your boss stress you out too much.”

“I’ll try.”

“And Kai?”

She pulled me down for a real kiss, soft and sweet and tasting like maple syrup, her hand cupping my cheek with such tender affection that my chest ached with something I couldn’t name.

“I love you.”

The words hung in the air between us and I felt myself wanting to say them back, the response sitting right there on my tongue like it belonged there.

Time skipped again.

I was coming home after work, loosening my tie as I walked through the door, and Sarah was there waiting with that same warm smile. We ate dinner together while she talked about her day—something about the garden and the neighbor’s cat—and I found myself actually listening, actually engaged in this mundane slice of life.

We watched TV curled up on the couch, her head resting on my shoulder and my arm around her waist, and some sitcom played in the background while we just existed together in comfortable silence.

“This is nice.”

Her voice was quiet, almost hesitant, and when I looked down she was gazing up at me with eyes that held no yellow slits or predatory gleam, just soft affection.

“Yeah, it is.”

We stayed like that until she fell asleep against me, her breathing slow and steady and perfectly human, and I watched her face in the flickering TV light while wondering when exactly I’d stopped questioning the reality around me.

Time moved forward again in those dream jumps.

Weeks passed or maybe months, each day blending into the next in a comfortable routine of breakfast kisses and goodnight embraces, of grocery shopping together and arguing about what to watch on Friday nights. Sarah laughed at my dumb jokes and I pretended to be interested in her stories about things that definitely never happened.

The illusion was perfect because it was ordinary.

No grand gestures, no supernatural drama, just two people living a quiet life together in a way that felt so real I could almost forget it wasn’t. Almost forget that the woman sleeping next to me every night could tear reality apart with a thought, almost forget that this entire existence was built from fear and desire and desperate loneliness.

I was lying in bed one morning with early light filtering through the curtains, Sarah still asleep beside me with her hair spread across the pillow and her hand resting on my chest. She looked peaceful, vulnerable even, and I watched her breathe while feeling that strange ache in my chest grow stronger.

This was what she wanted.

Not fear or terror or cosmic horror—just this, just someone to exist with in the mundane beautiful tedium of an ordinary life. Someone who saw her as Sarah instead of The Thing, as a person instead of a monster.

I reached up and touched her cheek gently.

Her eyes opened, green and clear and full of hope.

“Good morning.”

“Good morning.”

I let the moment stretch out between us, soft and golden and impossibly fragile, before I pushed my immunity through the illusion like shattering glass.

The bedroom dissolved.

Reality snapped back into focus with brutal clarity and I was standing in Sarah’s cell, the walls covered in her usual collection of bones and horrifying artifacts, the air cold and smelling like ozone. Sarah stood in front of me in her true form with too many joints and eyes that glowed yellow, but her expression was soft, almost grateful.

“Thank you.”

Her voice was quiet, genuine in a way I’d never heard before.

“For what?”

“For the dream, for letting me have that even if it was just for a moment.”

She moved closer and her movements were back to that fluid predatory grace, but there was something different in the way she looked at me now, something vulnerable and raw.

“You knew I’d dispel it.”

“Of course I did.”

She smiled and it was sad in a way that made my chest tight.

“But for those few minutes or hours or however long it lasted in there, I got to feel what it would be like, I got to pretend that someone like me could have something normal and good.”

I didn’t know what to say to that so I just stood there while she circled me once, not threatening but almost reverent.

“You gave me the kindest gift anyone’s ever given me Kai.”

“I just stood there.”

“You participated, you didn’t mock it or destroy it immediately, you let me have my fantasy.”

She stopped in front of me and reached up to touch my face with a hand that had returned to normal human proportions, her fingers gentle against my jaw.

“That’s more than anyone else would have done.”

The loneliness in her voice was brutal and I felt that familiar exhaustion of being the only anchor point for beings that existed beyond human comprehension.

“I’ll visit you soon, Sarah.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

She beamed at me, her whole face transforming with genuine joy, and for just a second I could see the woman from the illusion overlaid with the monster in front of me—both real, both true.

“I’ll be good until then, I won’t possess anyone or cause problems.”

“I appreciate that.”

I turned to leave but her voice stopped me at the door.

“Kai? In the dream, when I said I loved you—”

“I know.”

I didn’t turn around, didn’t want to see her face when I said the next part.

“I know Sarah.”

I left before she could respond and the seventeen locks engaged behind me with heavy finality, sealing her back in with her bones and her loneliness and her dreams of ordinary life with someone who could never give her what she really wanted.

The walk back felt longer than the walk there.