The world was still young, and so was humankind. Their lives were fragile, their tools crude, their days short and hunted by beasts that ruled the plains. Yet, in the small moments of survival, they discovered something greater — fire.
It came first as accident: the strike of lightning, the eruption of earth, the burning of dry wood beneath the storm. They feared it, then tamed it, then made it theirs. With fire came warmth, light, protection. And with it came something else: imagination.
Dream stood in silence at the edge of a cave where one such tribe huddled. He had no form to their eyes, no name in their tongues. Yet in their sleep, he was felt. He lingered in the cracks of their thoughts, where sparks of possibility waited to ignite.
The tribe was weary that night. The day's hunt had been hard, prey scarce. But the fire burned, and that was enough to hold despair at bay. The flames licked high, shadows stretching long against the walls, and their voices began to murmur. Not words, not yet — sounds, rough and tentative. But in those sounds lay the roots of story.
And in their dreams, Dream wove threads.
A hunter stirred, his eyelids fluttering. Within his slumber, he saw fire chained in the heavens, guarded by beings too great for man to challenge. He saw a lone figure climb the sky, seize the flame, and bear it down to earth, his hands blistered, his body broken, but triumphant.
Dream brushed the vision lightly, letting it burn brighter.
The hunter moaned in his sleep, turning against the cave wall. The fire crackled beside him, and when he awoke, his eyes stared into the flames with new meaning. He did not yet speak of it, but in his mind the thought took root: fire was not only chance. It was gift.
Another dreamed, this one a mother cradling her child. Her dream twisted as shadows stole across the cave floor, beasts larger than any her tribe had faced. Their eyes glowed with hunger, their claws reached for her child. She screamed, but before the beasts struck, fire blazed between them — and at its heart, a laughing trickster figure who had stolen the light from the creatures themselves and placed it into human hands.
The mother stirred awake with tears on her face. She clutched her child close to the fire, whispering sounds too soft to be words. Yet the child stared into the flame with wide, unblinking eyes, as if it carried a secret.
Dream let the vision linger, no more than a breath.
A third dreamed, an elder whose bones ached with the weight of years. In his sleep he climbed a mountain taller than the sky itself, each step carving pain into his limbs. At the peak, a flame burned in defiance of the wind, eternal and untouchable. He grasped it anyway. The fire devoured his flesh, but still he carried it downward, stumbling, bleeding, until he placed it into the hands of his tribe.
The elder woke gasping, clutching his palms. In the morning, when the others gathered around the fire, he touched the flames reverently, as if remembering something more than heat. His eyes shone with a story that had not yet been told.
Dream lingered unseen, watching. He had not given them fire — that was the world's own gift, born of storm and earth. Nor had he created their visions whole. They had dreamed these things themselves. All he had done was open the door, whispering the suggestion that fire might mean more than flame.
And so, when they gathered that night, their murmurs grew into something new. The hunter gestured at the fire, his hands sketching shapes in the air — a figure reaching down from the sky. The mother's voice joined his, adding the laughter of a trickster who had stolen it. The elder grunted his agreement, tracing lines in the dirt that told of mountains, of punishment, of sacrifice.
The tribe leaned in, listening, adding sounds, motions, fragments of meaning.
A story had been born.
They did not have a name for the one who brought the fire, but already his shape was clear: a figure who defied, who suffered, who gave. In their hearts, they carried the first myth of sacrifice, the first dream of rebellion against powers greater than themselves.
Dream stood at the edge of the firelight, a shadow that none could see, and watched the tale grow.
It would not remain the same. Time would reshape it, mouths would alter it, cultures would claim it. But the heart of it — the idea that fire was a gift stolen for humankind — would echo across ages.
One day, mortals would give that figure a name. Prometheus.
The flames leapt higher, and in the glow another presence emerged. Pale skin, dark hair, a smile touched with wry amusement — Death. She leaned against the cave wall, her eyes catching the light like distant stars.
"You've given them a thief of fire," she said softly, teasing but warm.
Dream's gaze did not waver from the mortals. "I gave nothing. They dreamed it themselves."
Her smile deepened. "You nudged them. Don't be coy. Without you, it would only be warmth and wood. You've made it meaning."
"Not I," Dream corrected gently. "They. All I did was open a door. They chose to walk through."
Death tilted her head, watching the tribe laugh as they retold the story with growing excitement. Already, they embellished — one claimed the figure had tricked beasts, another that he had stolen from the sky. Their voices overlapped, and the fire burned brighter, as though fueled by their belief.
Death's voice softened. "That's how it begins, isn't it? One dream, then another, and suddenly they've made a god."
Dream's expression was unreadable, but his eyes gleamed with something like pride. "Not gods. Stories. And stories will outlast fire itself."
For a while they stood in silence, watching the mortals craft the first myth with fumbling hands and eager voices. Beyond the cave, predators stalked the night, but within its walls the fire roared, and around it imagination burned brighter still.
Dream turned at last, his cloak of night rippling with unseen stars. "They will carry this tale long after these flames are gone. One day, it will have a name. Prometheus."
Death chuckled softly, the sound light in the heavy dark. "Prometheus," she repeated, tasting the word though it had not yet been born in their tongues. "Yes. I think I'll like that one."
The tribe laughed again, and their shadows leapt upon the cave walls, larger than life. Shapes of men, beasts, and fire danced across the stone, carrying the weight of dreams.
And Dream walked onward, already searching for the next spark.