The young Earth slept beneath a canopy of stars. Volcanoes simmered in the distance, rivers carved their paths through stone, and the air carried the raw bite of wilderness. Life teemed everywhere, but only now did it begin to stir in a new and fragile way — in thought.
Dream felt it before it bloomed.
He crossed the veil of night and found a small band of humans huddled together in the mouth of a cave. Their breathing was shallow, their bodies weary from the hunt. But within one of them — a child not yet fully grown — a spark caught. The first dream of its kind.
He leaned closer.
The dream was crude, a flickering image of fire held in steady hands. Not fire devouring the forest, not fire falling from the storm — but fire tamed, shared, warming the tribe. A vision of survival, of more than survival: of hope.
Dream touched the vision gently, no more than a breath of encouragement. The ember brightened. The child stirred awake, eyes drawn toward a fallen branch smoldering at the cave's edge. Where instinct might have urged fear, curiosity now pushed him closer. Trembling hands cupped the ember and carried it inward.
The others gathered around. Sparks leapt to kindling, flames rose, and warmth flooded the dark. Shadows danced across the stone walls. For the first time, night did not feel endless.
Dream lingered in silence. He had not given them fire — it was never his to give. But in their sleep he had nudged them toward the thought, and that was enough.
That night, he moved among their slumber again. Dreams flickered like the flames they'd built. A hunter dreamed of chasing beasts beyond the horizon. A mother dreamed of her lost child, alive again and smiling. An elder dreamed of hands painting shapes upon stone, giving permanence to memory.
Dream did not speak. He simply left the doors open.
When the tribe awoke, they carried more than fire. They carried ideas. The hunter pressed further into the wild. The elder picked up stone and scraped lines upon the cave wall, marking what words could not yet hold. The mother sang to her child, a lullaby without name, born from grief and dream.
Dream watched, unseen, a faint smile on his lips.
From the corner of his vision, another figure appeared — pale, calm, inevitable.
"You've found them," Death said softly, her voice more tender than the chill of her presence suggested. She leaned against the cave wall as though she had always been there.
"They dreamed," Dream replied simply. His eyes remained on the tribe. "I only listened."
She tilted her head, studying him with quiet amusement. "And nudged."
Dream neither confirmed nor denied it.
Death's gaze softened as she watched the mortals gathered close around their fire. "They are fragile," she murmured. "So quick to burn and fade. But beautiful in the moment they shine."
Dream inclined his head, his voice low. "Perhaps that is why their dreams matter. Each one is a spark that would otherwise be lost."
For a time, they stood together in silence, watching the tribe laugh around the firelight. Shadows leapt higher, painted in shapes that seemed larger than life. Stories began to form in their crude voices — stories not of what was, but of what might be.
Dream did not linger after that. He drifted back into the night sky, leaving the tribe to their fire, their songs, and their fragile, infinite sparks of thought.
For the first time, Earth was not only alive. It was dreaming.