The rain was still falling when Ethan woke.
Not the soft kind that lulled you back to sleep, this one had rhythm. Precise, repeating. Like someone was looping the same second of sound over and over again.
He frowned, pushing himself up. The clock on his nightstand blinked "7:02." Then it flickered, reversed to "7:01," and ticked forward again.
He rubbed his eyes. Maybe I have been reading too much weird fiction lately.
When he looked up at the mirror across the room, his reflection stared back a moment too long before moving with him.
A shiver ran through him. "Yeah, definitely need coffee."
By the time he reached the bookstore, the streets were empty. No vendors setting up. No chatter. Just that endless rhythm of rain. The air felt thick, heavier somehow, like it was pressing down on everything.
He unlocked the door and stepped inside. The little brass bell above the entrance gave its usual ring but even that sounded wrong,
Tired, and Hollow.
"Mr. Abernathy?" Ethan called out, hanging his coat. Silence.
Only a cup of coffee sat on the counter, and the steam was still rising. But the door had been locked when he arrived.
He moved through the aisles, his footsteps echoing too clearly. When he turned down the fiction section, his breath caught.
All the book spines were blank.
He blinked, took a step back, blinked again.
Titles returned: To Kill a Mockingbird, The Odyssey, The Mind Beyond Sleep.
He laughed under his breath. "Okay… definitely losing it."
The day passed in strange fragments. Customers came and went, but their movements felt off – too synchronized. Too smooth.
A man and woman entered separately but said the exact same thing when they reached the counter:
"Lovely weather today."
With the same tone, and same pause after "lovely."
Ethan's smile faltered. "Yeah… lovely."
A little girl came in later, hair dripping from the rain. She walked straight up to him and whispered, "Do you have The Dream Eater?"
He typed it into the store database, and there it was. For half a second. Then it vanished.
When he looked up, the girl was smiling.
"It'll find you," she said, before skipping out the door.
The bell chimed, soft and unsettling.
Ethan stood there for a long time, staring at the empty spot where she'd been.
Hours later, he was shelving a pile of returned books when the world blinked again. Just a flicker, but in that instant, he wasn't in the store.
He was in a hospital room.
Machines beeping softly. A woman's voice, trembling.
"Ethan, please wake up…"
Then, a flatline tone. Sharp. Endless.
The sound hit him like a punch to the chest. His knees buckled, and the books clattered to the floor.
He squeezed his temples. That voice… why does it sound like I've heard it before?
When he opened his eyes again, he was back in the bookstore.
No sound. No woman. Just the quiet hum of the lights above.
Night came early.
The rain hadn't stopped all day, soft but constant, like a whisper that never ended.
Ethan finished counting the register, grabbed his bag, and was halfway to the door when he heard it.
A hum. Low. Tuneless. Coming from the back room.
He hesitated. "Mr. Abernathy?"
No reply.
He followed the sound, heart pounding, until he noticed the wet footprints — small puddles trailing into the storage room.
The door creaked open. Inside, a man sat cross-legged on the floor, his clothes soaked, holding one of the blank books.
He tipped his chin, his expression calm, if not quite curious
"You shouldn't be able to see me yet," the man said.
Ethan froze. "Who are you?"
The stranger tilted his head slightly, a faint grin forming. "Someone who forgot how to wake up."
Before Ethan could say anything else, the lights flickered, and the man was gone.
Only the book remained, lying open on the ground.
Ethan picked it up.
The pages were filled with handwriting. His handwriting.
Lines, repeated over and over like a chant:
"The dreamer who wakes too soon falls deeper."
"The dreamer who wakes too soon falls deeper."
His chest tightened.
He ran out of the store, the book still in his hand. The air outside was heavy, unnaturally still. The rain hung midair for a split second, frozen before falling again.
He took the long road home, head spinning. The world around him felt like a copy that had been rewritten too many times. Blurry, and imperfect.
Streetlights flickered as he passed. His footsteps echoed louder than they should have.
And then he saw him.
Under the last light of the street, a small figure stood in the rain — motionless.
The boy.
Ethan's breath caught.
The same tear-streaked face from his dreams. Small shoulders trembling. Eyes wide, filled with something Ethan couldn't name. Fear, maybe. Or sorrow.
Lightning flashed, and for a split second the space behind the boy bent, the air itself seemed to fold, rippling like fabric caught in the wind.
"Why… why do you look so real?"
The boy's mouth moved, but no sound came out. Only a faint echo brushed against Ethan's thoughts:
"You're not supposed to be here."
The light flickered once more, and the boy was gone.
Ethan stood there for a long time, drenched and shaking, watching the empty road.
Finally, he whispered, voice breaking through the quiet,
"What if none of this is real?"
The rain answered him softly, steady and endless.