Aurora and the Thousand-Year Sleep

After her kiss, Aurora was never quite awake.

She would drift off mid-sentence, mid-breath, and dream new worlds — vast kingdoms, lovers, wars. Each dream lasted centuries. Each ended in death.

Then she’d wake again, the prince’s hand in hers, the world unchanged.

“You were only asleep for a moment,” he’d say.

But her eyes were older. Her heart heavier. She had lived a thousand years in the blink of an eye.

When she finally refused to sleep again, the dreams began bleeding into the waking world — trees growing upside-down, the sun pausing mid-sky, time folding over itself.

She realized she wasn’t cursed to sleep. She was cursed by sleep — doomed to dream reality into existence, over and over.

Her last words before closing her eyes forever were whispered to the prince:

“Wake me, and I’ll dream you out of existence.”