Echoes of a Forgotten Dream

It began as a dream, or maybe it was something older than dreaming. I cannot recall the moment it started, only the feeling it left behind.

A vast field stretched endlessly before me, glowing faintly as if the grass itself remembered light from another world.

There was a sound too, not a song, not a voice, but something in between—an echo.

I woke in my small room, heart trembling, the taste of that dream still alive in me. At first, I tried to ignore it.

Dreams vanish like mist, don’t they? But this one didn’t. Each night, when sleep pulled me under, the same field returned.

Each morning, I woke with the same echo ringing in my chest.

It was not a dream. It was a place.

Days lost their weight as nights grew heavier.

I began to long for sleep, to rush toward it, because only there could I step into that other world. At times, I felt I was not alone. Shadows lingered at the edges of the field, moving with caution, watching me. They did not speak. They only waited.

One night, I dared to walk farther than before.

My feet carried me to a river that glowed like liquid silver. Its surface did not ripple, though the wind pressed against it. When I bent closer, I saw not my reflection but fragments of memories—some mine, some belonging to strangers. A child laughing in a place I had never seen. A woman’s face I did not know, her eyes filled with longing. A soldier walking into smoke, never to return.

The river held forgotten dreams. And I had become one of them.

I tried to turn back, but the echo followed me, louder now, weaving through my bones. It called me deeper. I resisted, yet each night it returned, relentless. I began to fear waking, for each morning the world felt more unreal, less alive.

The people around me seemed faint, as if they were fading into the very silence I carried.

I sought answers in books, in stories, in the old tales whispered by elders near the fire. One man told me of dreamwalkers—souls who wandered too far into the land of sleep and found paths not meant for mortals.

“They don’t come back the same,” he warned. I didn’t laugh. By then, I already knew I was one of them.

And then, one night, the shadows finally moved.

They stepped forward, countless figures shaped like smoke and sorrow. Their faces blurred, their voices low.

They spoke not in words but in echoes—fragments of forgotten dreams that had belonged to others. Lost hopes, broken loves, wishes that never reached the morning. They circled me, pressing close, their silence heavy.

One stepped nearer, her form trembling like mist in wind. She raised her hand, and though it was made of shadow, it felt warm against mine.

Then I heard it—her dream. A life she had wished for but never lived. Her voice whispered inside me: “Carry it. Remember it. Do not let it vanish.”

I gasped awake, clutching nothing but the air. Yet her echo remained in my chest, carved deeper than breath.

From that night, the dream changed. The field no longer felt empty. Each time I entered it,

I met another shadow, another forgotten dream. They shared their echoes, each one placing a fragment of their lost world inside me. I carried them, though they grew heavier. My own memories began to blur, tangled with theirs.

Was I losing myself? Or was I becoming something more?

I don’t know the answer even now. But I know this: forgotten dreams do not die. They wait. They linger in the corners of silence, searching for someone willing to carry them.

I became that someone, unwilling yet chosen.

In time, I stopped fearing the weight. Their echoes became my strength, my reminder that nothing truly vanishes.

Every unspoken wish, every broken prayer, every smile that faded too soon—they all live somewhere, waiting for a dreamer reckless enough to listen.

Maybe that dream was never mine to begin with. Maybe it was theirs, reaching across the fragile veil of sleep, calling me into their endless field. I was not the dreamer.

I was the echo.

And even if I forget who I am, I will remember them.

Because echoes of forgotten dreams never fade. They only find a new voice.