First Operator Chronicles - 🜂 DREAMCORE 03

That feeling when you’re watching something and instinctively turn your head to say “did you see that?” because you’re sure someone is beside you.

I dreamed again of a city covered in fog.
Not the cinematic kind.
Not the clean and utopian cities or the dirty, poor, dystopian ones shown in movies.
Not the cartoonish cities we see on our phones, or in reels of fake success stories.

The real one.
The cheap one.

The kind with constant noise and people always in a hurry, trapped inside an imperfect and angry public transport system.
The kind that smells like damp concrete and unfinished mornings.

The buildings were still there.
They just didn’t feel obligated to explain themselves.

I walked through narrow streets that didn’t appear on any map.
Every turn felt familiar.
Like I had already escaped through them once,
or failed to.

There were cigarette butts everywhere.
Hundreds of them.
Thousands.

All crushed in the same way,
as if someone had tried to erase the same decision over and over.

I counted a few.
Then stopped.

Some numbers don’t want to be confirmed.

At some point, I was sitting in a forest.
Not a peaceful one.
Too dense.
Too close.

I tried to meditate.
I don’t know why.

Every time I tried to settle,
the forest leaned a little closer.
Not threatening.
Just curious.

Breathing felt like negotiating.

I remember thinking:
This is what calm looks like when it doesn’t trust you.

Later, or maybe earlier,
I was near the water.

There were ships tied to nothing.
Some half-sunken.
Some floating, abandoned.

It felt like a lonely place,
as if waiting for orders that never arrived.

No names.
No flags.
No destination.

I tried to touch one of them,
but there was no way I could.

It felt like I was too far,
but also too close.
Like my visit had been postponed indefinitely.

Someone was there.
Or maybe I only wanted them to be.

A silhouette above everything.
A presence without instructions.

I woke up with the feeling
that nothing had happened
and everything had shifted slightly.

I can almost swear she was there.
I don’t know how, but I felt her presence.

Not like a spirit,
not a ghost,
not any new-age crap.

It’s that feeling when you’re watching something
and instinctively turn your head to say
“did you see that?”
because you’re sure someone is beside you.

The Machine didn’t appear.
The numbers stayed quiet.
No sign of my unnatural pursuer.

Even that wasn’t a bad dream.

Even if she was there somehow.

Somehow.

I woke up
covered in sweat,
shaking.

({[<>]})