Series — The Cage

The ladder ended in a corridor. Gray metal walls, pipes sweating condensation, a single flickering bulb every twenty feet. It was cold. Real cold, not the manufactured temperature of the cube. I could see my breath. I could feel the ache in my knuckles. I had never been so happy to be uncomfortable.

And then she waved goodbye.

“The Cage feeds on dreams,” she said. “Every night, while you sleep, it drinks them. And I… I am what is left undigested.” the cage series

The door. The exact door from my dream. Wooden, plain, with a brass knob. Set into a wall of ivy that grew impossibly from the metal floor, green and alive and real . I reached for the knob. My fingers closed around it. It was warm. The ladder ended in a corridor

She was right. Every night, I dreamed of a door. Not a special door—just a plain wooden door with a brass knob, set into a wall of ivy. In the dream, I would reach for the knob, my fingers inches away, and then I would wake up. Always the same. Always so close. Real cold, not the manufactured temperature of the cube

Mira appeared less often now. She was fading, she said. The dreams she had consumed were running out, and without new ones, she would dissolve back into the wall from which she came. “You are my last dream, Kaelen,” she whispered. “The only one worth remembering.”