The Stranger Who Writes My Dreams

The Stranger Who Writes My Dreams

When your own journal stops belonging to you, how do you know what’s real anymore?

I have kept journals since I was twelve. They were my safe place, my record of small victories and humiliations, my own quiet history. No one ever touched them. No one was supposed to.

That’s why, on the morning of February 3rd, I nearly dropped my pen when I opened my journal to find a page already written on.

It wasn’t my handwriting.

Where I usually wrote in neat, looping script, this was jagged, slanted, almost hurried. The words sprawled across the page as though they had been poured out in a fever:

“You don’t remember, but we spoke last night. You asked me about the river. You promised to return.”

I sat there staring at it, my chest tightening. I had no memory of writing that. I had no memory of speaking to anyone about a river.

I tore the page out and shoved it in my desk drawer.

The next morning, there was another entry.

“The dreams belong to me. I only borrow your pen to remind you. Don’t be afraid.”

Again, the handwriting wasn’t mine. Again, it mentioned dreams I couldn’t recall.

I tried to laugh it off. Maybe I was half-asleep when I wrote them. Maybe this was my subconscious playing tricks. I’d been stressed from exams, after all. People do strange things under pressure.

But the handwriting kept returning, filling more pages in my journal with conversations I never had.

“You asked me what the bridge meant. It’s where we first met, though you’ve forgotten. Tomorrow, look outside your window.”

The next day, I did.

And on the sidewalk below my apartment, standing among strangers, was a man who looked up directly at me and smiled—like he knew me.

I told myself it was a coincidence. People glance up at windows all the time.

But that night, there was another note in my journal:

“Thank you for noticing me. I saw you too.”

The words crawled under my skin like insects.

Over the next week, the entries grew longer. They described places I had never been, moments I had never lived:

A conversation in a library with sunlight falling across our shoulders.

A walk through a city I didn’t recognize, where the air smelled like oranges.

A fight—sharp words spoken between us about a promise broken.

The stranger seemed to know me intimately. He wrote about my fears, my secrets, things I had never put to paper. Things I had never told anyone.

I stopped writing in the journal. But the handwriting continued to appear without me.

One night, I dreamed vividly for the first time in weeks.

I was standing on a bridge over black water. The city skyline glittered in the distance. A man leaned against the railing, his face hidden in shadow.

“You’re late,” he said.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“You already know.”

I woke up with my heart pounding, the sheets tangled around me. On the nightstand, my journal was open. In the stranger’s handwriting, a new line appeared:

“Now you’ve seen me.”

The following day, I decided to confront him—if he was real at all.

I wrote in the journal for the first time since the entries began:

“If you’re truly there, meet me. Tomorrow. Noon. The old park bench near the library.”

The next morning, I opened the journal. His reply was already waiting.

“I’ll be there.”

I told myself I was insane for going. But at noon, I found myself at the park bench near the library, my hands shaking.

And there he was.

The man from the sidewalk. The man from the bridge in my dream. He was real—too real. Dark hair, sharp eyes, a faint scar on his chin. He looked up from the bench and smiled at me as though greeting an old friend.

“You finally remembered,” he said.

My voice caught. “Who are you?”

“The one who writes what you forget.”

I shook my head. “None of this makes sense. How can you—how can you write in my journal?”

He leaned forward, his voice soft. “Because your life isn’t entirely yours. I’ve always been there, in the margins. In the dreams you don’t remember. You wake, and you forget me. But I never forget you.”

I stood frozen. My rational mind screamed that this was impossible. But part of me, some deep buried part, felt an ache of recognition.

“You don’t believe me,” he said gently. “You don’t have to. Soon, you’ll dream again, and you’ll see. And when you wake…”

He tapped the side of my bag, where the journal rested.

“…I’ll remind you.”

I left the park without looking back.

It’s been three weeks since then.

I haven’t returned to the bench. I haven’t opened the journal either. I keep it locked away in my desk, afraid of what I’ll find.

But sometimes, when I wake from dreams I cannot fully remember, I feel the weight of the journal pulling at me.

And I wonder—if I open it again, will I find the stranger’s words waiting for me?

Or worse—will I find my own handwriting, replying?