19. A Love That Shouldnt Exist
A Love That Shouldn't Exist
Damian
The fire crackles softly, its golden glow casting slow-moving shadows across the room. The scent of embers and her still lingers in the air, tangled with something deeper—a weight neither of us can ignore.
Nichole rests against me, her fingers tracing idle patterns along my chest, slow and rhythmic. There’s a peace in this moment, a calm I don’t remember ever feeling before. Not in the real world. Not even here.
And yet, beneath it, something gnaws at me.
This place; this mansion; this dream; her.
How much longer do I have with her before it all slips away? Before I wake up and she’s nothing but a memory?
The nightmare room was as real as anything in this mansion and the moment we didn’t need it anymore it disappeared. Is that what will happen if this palace decides we no longer need it? I could lose her at any moment, never to see her again.
My grip on her tightens, but I don’t say it. Not yet.
Nichole lifts her head to look at me, something unreadable in her gaze.
“Damian…” She hesitates, biting her lip before sitting up fully. “There’s something I need to show you.”
Nichole shifts beside me, the warmth of her body pulling away as she sits up. Her hair falls in soft waves over her shoulders, illuminated by the firelight, but there’s something in her eyes—something serious.
“While you were gone,” she says quietly, fingers brushing over the sheets as if searching for the right words, “I explored the library more.”
I arch a brow. The library. That endless hall of knowledge buried deep within this mansion, filled with texts older than time itself. Books that shouldn’t exist.
"And?" I ask, already knowing whatever she found is important.
Instead of answering, she reaches over to the side table and picks up a thick, ancient-looking book.
The leather cover is worn, cracked with age, yet the deep engraving on the spine gleams as if it’s alive.
The moment she places it in my hands, a strange sensation rolls through me—like static beneath my skin.
"I found this," she says, voice steady but tinged with something else. Anticipation. Hope.
I run my fingers over the cover, then slowly flip through the delicate pages. The scent of old parchment fills the air, but as my eyes scan the text, something strange happens.
I understand it.
The words aren’t in any language I should know, but they resonate—as if they were always meant to find me. And then, one passage burns brighter than the rest, the ink almost glowing under the firelight:
"When the heart of a dream beats strong enough, it searches for its place in the waking world. The key to reality lies within the seeker’s will to find it."
My breath catches.
My grip tightens on the book.
I read the words again, but they don’t change. They don’t fade. They hold a truth I can’t ignore.
Slowly, I lift my gaze to Nichole, whose expression is unreadable.
"Tell me you see what I see," she whispers.
Nichole watches me, her gaze searching mine, waiting. I can see the weight of what she’s saying in her eyes, the quiet plea beneath her words.
"I don’t think this is just a dream, Damian," she says softly.
I close the book slowly, running a thumb over the faded cover, my thoughts racing. The passage—its meaning. It suggests something impossible, something beyond the laws of nature. And yet, isn’t this entire mansion a testament to the impossible?
Nichole swallows, then continues, her voice steady but laced with fragile hope.
"What if I exist out there, somewhere? What if this is how we were meant to find each other?"
My pulse pounds in my ears. She’s asking a question I don’t know how to answer.
But more than that—I don’t want to answer it. Because if she’s right, if she’s more than just a creation of my subconscious, then that means there’s a version of reality where she’s real. Flesh and blood. Somewhere waiting.
And if she’s wrong?
The dream shifts around me, the edges of the world flickering like a candle caught in the wind. Shadows stretch unnaturally, warping into something unreal, something fragile, as if the entire space is on the verge of shattering.
Nichole stands in front of me, her expression steady, but there’s something behind her eyes—something urgent.
I’ve spent every waking moment trying to figure out how to find her, how to bring her into my world, how to prove that she’s more than just a dream. And now, as I stare at her, the reality of it presses in. I can’t keep waiting.
“I’ll find you,” I tell her, my voice firm, resolute. “I don’t care how long it takes. I’ll find you in real life.”
Nichole steps closer, her hand grazing my wrist, her touch light but grounding. “You don’t have to figure it out on your own,” she says softly. “I can guide you to me.”
The moment she speaks the words, the dream quakes.
A violent tremor rolls through the space, the walls—if they were ever real to begin with—beginning to crack. The deep hum in the air turns into a deafening roar, the world tearing apart at the seams. My breath catches. This is different.
This isn’t like the other times I’ve woken up.
This is a collapse.
Nichole’s fingers tighten around my wrist, her grip no longer light, no longer gentle. There’s desperation there, urgency, the same need I feel surging through my veins.
She parts her lips, trying to say something else, but the sound distorts, swallowed by the breaking dream. The air twists, colors bleeding together, gravity shifting beneath my feet. I reach for her, anchoring myself to her presence even as everything around us disintegrates.
“Nichole—”
Her lips move, but the only words I catch before the void swallows her are, “Find my friend Valentina.”
And then my eyes snap open. The shift between worlds slams into me, a violent jolt that leaves my body rigid, breath ragged. My chest rises and falls in sharp, uneven pulls, the weight of something unseen pressing down on me.
My heart pounds against my ribs, fast, unrelenting, like I’ve just been wrenched from something I wasn’t supposed to leave behind.
Nichole's touch lingers—a phantom warmth against my skin where her fingers had rested. My hand clamps over the spot, desperate to hold onto the sensation before it disappears completely.
But it’s already fading. The fire’s glow against her skin. The way she looked at me, eyes full of something unspoken. The whisper of my name, soft, lingering, like a promise. Gone.
I inhale sharply, but the air feels wrong. Cold. Empty. No firewood, no warmth curling around me. Only the distant hum of the city outside my penthouse windows, the sterile scent of leather and cologne grounding me in a reality that suddenly feels like the dream.
I’m back. But for the first time, it doesn’t feel real.
Pressing my fingers against my pulse, I try to steady the brutal rhythm pounding beneath my skin. This world—the one I was born into, the one I built with my own hands—has always been the only reality that mattered.
But now, something else has buried itself deep in my bones, cutting through logic, through reason, through every certainty I once held.
She’s real. She has to be.
I throw the covers back and swing my legs over the edge of the bed, muscles tensing as if ready for a fight. My mind is already racing, dissecting, strategizing, turning the impossible into something I can control.
Nichole isn’t just some figment of my subconscious. She isn’t just a dream. She’s out there. Somewhere. Waiting.
Dragging a hand through my hair, I try to push back the storm inside me, but the memory of what she found won’t let go.
The book. The passage she read to me. When the heart of a dream beats strong enough, it searches for its place in the waking world.
My heart is still beating. Hard. Fast. Unrelenting.
She’s waiting for me and I will find her.
No matter what it takes…