I was already late
The whole thing felt like someone had taken horror, fantasy, and a Victorian period drama, thrown them into a blender, and served whatever came out in a fancy glass with no explanation.
I looked around again. Pitch black in every direction. Nothing. "Is… is this some kind of prank?"
She drew herself up slightly, and her expression went from mildly entertained to carrying the full weight of someone who had not come here to be questioned. "Mark me well, young man— I do not speak in mirth," she said, tone going heavy. "I warn you. Misfortune shall befall ere long."
I stared at her. Then I looked around the void again. Then back at her. "Wow. Dramatic." I crossed my arms. "So I'm trapped in a dream with a naked Victorian ghost girl warning me about tragedy. Great. Love that for me."
"S-SILENCE!" The composure cracked instantly, her voice jumping from high to low pitch. "For your information, I am not a ghost! And I did not come here for your— your mockery!"
She looked genuinely flustered, which was funny, because she'd opened with a dramatic prophecy and somehow wasn't prepared for pushback.
In short… I was already getting comfortable. Which… doesn't make sense. "Oh, my bad," I said anyway, bowing with a little too much enthusiasm. "Terribly sorry, Flustered Dream Ghostly Miss."
That landed exactly as well as I expected. She froze, cheeks puffing up, eyes wide— and honestly the combination of the Victorian floating and the very non-Victorian expression on her face was too much.
A laugh slipped out before I could catch it. "Pfft—"
"You! You're laughing!" she cried, and stomped her foot, and ripples spread across the void in every direction like she'd stepped on invisible water, which was a genuinely impressive side effect for someone who was supposedly not a ghost.
"Sorry, sorry," I said, wiping the tears in the corner of my eye. "You're just— you're really bad at being scary."
Her eyes went wide, then softened into something closer to exasperated resignation. "You are insufferable," she muttered, crossing her arms. Her form flickered faintly at the edges, like a signal losing connection.
"Wait, hey— don't vanish on me now!"
"Perhaps next time you'll learn to listen," she whispered, voice going faint— and then she was gone, just like that, leaving me alone in the endless dark with nothing but silence and the mild embarrassment of having laughed a dream lady into leaving.
I sat down in the void. Waited. "Okay. Guess she's gone."
A long silence answered me. The dark just kind of sat there, being dark. Then— after a few minutes later. "You're supposed to wake up now, idiot."
I spun around so fast I nearly lost my balance.
Andddd there she was, floating upside down about two feet behind me, arms crossed, glaring at me with the exact same pouty expression she'd left with, like she'd been there the whole time and was deeply unimpressed by my lack of initiative.
"You're still here…?" I asked.
"Obviously," she huffed, flipping upright in midair with a sharp motion. "You didn't even try to wake up. Do you think dream portals close themselves?"
"I— I don't know… I don't even know what a dream portal is. I don't usually get tutorials from angry dream ladies, so you'll have to forgive me for not knowing… you know?"
She pinched the bridge of her nose. Took what appeared to be a steadying breath. "Now listen," she said, with the energy of someone who had rehearsed this and was already off script. "This realm operates under the Law of Emotion."
"Wait, wait, wait—"
"If you interrupt me one more time I swear I will—"
"Oh!... Sorry, Sorry. Continue, Your Royal Ghostliness."
She stopped dead. "I am not royal. And I told you— I am not a ghost."
"Right, right. Of course. Completely heard."
She stared at me for a second like she was reconsidering all of her choices. Then she pushed forward. "As I was saying. This realm operates under the Law of Emotion. Whatever you feel strongly enough— it manifests. Which means in this space, you must be careful, because—"
"So if I imagine a pizza…"
POOF.
A hot pepperoni pizza materialized between us, perfectly formed, steam rising from the crust, smelling exactly like the real thing.
She blinked at it. I blinked at it too.
Then before either of us could say anything—
POOF—
The sleeping kid appeared out of nowhere, there for exactly one second, then gone just as fast.
"WHAT WAS THAT?!" she shouted.
"The law of emotion likes pizza, I guess," I said, already reaching for a slice. "Ignore the kid one, that was just something random."
"Unbelievable…" She pressed her fingers to her temple, staring at the ceiling of the void which… doesn't exist, haha. "The fate of your reality may depend on what happens in this dream, and you summon food."
"At least I didn't summon you."
"WHAT DID YOU JUST— wait… actually what do you mean? ಠ_ಠ."
I shrugged.
"ಠ,_｣ಠ You know what? Forget about it."
I held up the slice, steam still curling off it into the black, and took a bite, completely unbothered. "See? Law of Emotion. Works great."
What happened next after that was not my fault. The pizza began to vibrate. Not aggressively— just a little, the way something does right before it becomes a problem.
The pepperoni slid off one by one like tiny moons detaching from a planet and began to orbit my head in a slow, dignified circle.
The crust curled upward at the edges, twisted itself into a ribbon, tightened into a loop, and settled onto my head like a crown.
She went pale.
"Oh no," she whispered.
Then the void glitched— a full, violent visual stutter, the darkness flickering at the edges like bad reception.
Laughter that belonged to no one echoed somewhere far away. The air developed a very specific smell, like oregano and old library books, which was a combination I had not previously considered and did not enjoy. Like… who's into that smell?
"You did this," she accused, one finger pointing directly at me. "Your levity is destabilizing the realm!"
"Me?" I gestured at the orbiting pepperonis. "I just ate a slice! Blame them."
And then, like they'd been waiting for acknowledgment, the pepperonis aligned. Rearranged. Spelled out, in neat floating letters against the black…
W-A-K-E U-P. It said.
Her face did several things at once. "I did not— this isn't— this is impossible…"
(Overacting… and woah, this is fun.) I thought to myself…
Then— "Okay, okay." I stood up and tried to look like someone with a plan.
The crown crust immediately fell off my head and flopped sadly to the invisible floor. "How do we fix a destabilized dream?"
She pulled herself together with visible effort, clasping her hands, lifting her chin. "Concentrate. Breathe. And for heaven's sake— stop being amused."
I stared at her. "Stop being amused?"
"Yes."
"That is the cruelest thing anyone has ever said to me."
"JUST…" she pressed her palms together. "be serious. For once. Please."
In that moment, I tried. I genuinely, honestly tried. I stood up straight, looked at the floating pepperoni letters, took a breath, and held my face very carefully neutral.
It lasted approximately three seconds before a smile got out.
She threw both hands up. And somehow, the scattered crumbs on the invisible floor gathered themselves into a neat little broom and slid across the void toward me like an offering.
"Fine," she said through her teeth, "then sweep."
I looked at the broom. Looked at her. "I'm a terrible cleaner."
"Do it."
"Or you'll what? Turn into a pizza-shaped monster?" Her eye twitched. It twitched with the full force of someone who had been extremely patient for an extremely long time and was approaching a limit.
"I will haunt you," she said, very quietly, "properly. Later."
I picked up the broom. Figured that was the reasonable call.
As I swept— which felt ridiculous, sweeping a void, but apparently the void had opinions— the chaos slowly unwound itself.
The orbiting pepperonis lost momentum and drifted politely back onto the crust.
The glitching at the edges smoothed out. The laughter faded. The stinky, dirty, foul oregano smell dissipated. The darkness settled back into something calmer, more intentional, like a room that had just been tidied by two people who'd both rather have been doing literally anything else.
It felt, weirdly, satisfied. Even though I was the one who'd done all the sweeping and she'd just stood… float there with her arms crossed supervising like a very unhelpful project manager.
"Okay," I muttered, setting the broom down. "Crisis averted. One less weird pizza emergency."
I paused.
"That sentence was genuinely… cringe."
She blinked. "Cringe…?"
'Yeah, like— wait." I squinted at her. Something had been bothering me since she showed up and I'd finally figured out what it was.
"What?" she asked, tilting her head.
"Why do you talk like you walked out of a Shakespeare play, and I sound like I'm in a group chat?" She frowned, genuinely uncertain.
"A what chat?"
"Exactly." I pointed at her.
"That's the whole thing! I'm speaking completely normal and you're over here going 'I do not speak in mirth' and 'misfortune shall befall ere long' and etc etc… how are we even understanding each other right now? Is there like a translation patch in this dream or something? Did I miss something?"
She looked at me for a long moment with the expression of someone encountering a creature they hadn't studied for.
"I simply speak as I always have," she said finally. "Perhaps it is you whose tongue is strange."
"Sure," I muttered. "Blame the normal person."
Her left eye twitched and she sigh— the long, deep, genuinely tired kind— and looked at me with something that wasn't quite exasperation anymore. More like reluctant curiosity.
"You truly are a confounding creature," she said.
"Thanks," I said, smirking. "I get that a lot."