The Library of Lost Dreams

Most people walk past the alley on Grandmere Street without ever seeing the door.

It’s not hidden, exactly—just forgotten. A chipped wooden frame with faded gold lettering that reads:

“The Library of Lost Dreams.”

It was curiosity, not courage, that led Lina Weaver, 26 and tired of everything, to push that door open. The bookstore where she worked had just cut her hours again. She was two unpaid bills away from moving back in with her mother, whose version of love sounded more like disappointment.

The door creaked open, exhaling dust and something older—like time holding its breath.

Inside was… quiet. A towering maze of bookshelves, not with books, but scrolls. Rolled parchment bound with silk ribbons. Some shimmered softly. Others looked as if they hadn’t been touched in centuries.

A small, flickering sign hung above the front desk:

"Welcome, Dreamkeeper."

“Wrong person,” Lina whispered to no one.

Then she saw it: A scroll glowing faintly with her name.

She reached for it, but her hand stopped midair. Fear. What dream had she forgotten? Or worse—abandoned?

Instead, she picked up another scroll nearby. The name read: "Nico Alvarez." Inside: a dream of becoming a street musician. Lina didn’t know who he was, but something compelled her to find him.

📍 One Week Later

She found Nico in a subway tunnel, strumming a broken guitar with only three strings. He didn’t even glance at her when she handed him the scroll.

“What’s this?”

“Something you left behind,” she said, and walked away.

The next day, she returned to the tunnel. Nico was there—same spot—but this time, the guitar had six strings and a small crowd swayed to his melody.

It became her ritual. One scroll. One name. One delivery.

She gave a dusty scroll to a retired teacher who once dreamed of opening a children's school. Two months later, a sign appeared in her front yard: “Ms. Gertrude’s Garden of Curiosity.”

She gave another to a man who once painted murals. He’d stopped after his brother died. Two weeks later, an alley bloomed with color.

Dreams came back to life, one by one.

But every night, Lina returned to the library and passed her own glowing scroll, still unopened.

She was helping others dream again—wasn’t that enough?

Then came the night she found the scroll with no name at all.

Confused, she opened it. Just one sentence:

“You are not a delivery girl. You are a Dreamkeeper. And yours is fading.”

The shelves around her dimmed.

The air grew cold.

She ran.

That night, she sat in her tiny kitchen and finally opened her scroll.

It was simple:

To write stories that light fires in dark places. To remind people they’re not alone.

Her fingers trembled.

She hadn’t written anything since her father died.

The next morning, Lina sat at her desk and began to write. Not for an agent. Not for money. Just… to begin again.

A week passed. Then a month.

She still delivered dreams—but now, she was living hers too.

One morning, she opened the library and found only one scroll on the shelves. It was blank.

A note lay beside it:

“The final dream is not yet written. It belongs to those still searching.”

So Lina placed the scroll in a glass box and moved it to the front of the library.

Above it, she etched a new sign:

“Take what you need. Leave what you dream.”

And slowly, the shelves began to fill again.

Not with lost dreams—but with new ones.