*Ring... Ring... Ring...*
The alarm's sound wasn't just a programmed tone to wake him this time. It was a hostile noise, a sharp rhythm that stabbed into his ear like needles, striking deep into his mind and announcing—against his will—that a new chapter of life was about to begin.
But Leo didn't move. He remained stretched out, half his body covered by a blanket damp with cold sweat, his eyes barely open from exhaustion. He wasn't fully awake, but he wasn't asleep either. Stuck in that gray zone between reality and dreams, between awareness and unconsciousness.
"Damn it... Your voice is worse than my nightmare," he muttered as he reached blindly toward the bedside table, slamming the alarm hard enough to finally silence it.
Silence. Then a long, heavy exhale, closer to a sigh from an exhausted soul.
The nightmare...
It wasn't an ordinary dream. It was more than that. It was a vivid image of another world. Sounds, scenes, the smell of ash, a sensation of extreme cold, of fear, of being lost. His hands had been trembling when he woke up, as if they were still clutching a corpse. His heart pounded violently, as though something inside him was trying to escape.
He lay there, staring at his bedroom ceiling. Over and over, he tried to convince himself that everything he'd seen was just a dream. An illusion. A hallucination from sleep deprivation or maybe a mix of exhaustion and the many novels he read. But...
Why had it felt so real?
A voice inside him still whispered.
The voice of that strange entity at the end of the dream, the one that spoke of "liberation," of the "crumbling body," of the "end."
Leo shivered again.
"Leoooooo! It's a quarter to nine! If you don't get up now, you'll miss the train!"
His mother Emma's voice, as usual, was strong, confident, cutting through the air and forcing him out of bed—even if only after an internal battle.
"Five more minutes, Mom..." he mumbled drowsily, as if his voice came from a deep well.
He covered his head with the blanket, trying to escape the day, himself, reality.
But five minutes passed—or maybe not even that—before that voice came again, louder, sharper.
"Leoooooooo! This is your last warning!"
"I'm coming!" he finally shouted, rising half-conscious, half-dead, scratching his head as his hair stuck out in every direction, as chaotic as he was.
Before he could fully stand, his mother pounced on him, yanking the blanket off with such force that his body rolled off the bed, hitting the hard floor.
"Ah—Damn it! Who... ah, Mom?!"
He lifted his head and looked at her face. That stern face, which rarely smiled, was now a mirror of anger. It wasn't just a mother's anger at her son. It was the anger of a woman watching her dream for her son slowly crumble.
"Look at the time!" she said, gesturing with her eyes toward the alarm.
Leo slowly turned his gaze... then his eyes widened.
8:53 AM.
"Gaaah!" He jumped up as if bitten by a snake, sprinting toward the bathroom while cursing the day.
...
In the kitchen, his father, Han, sat sipping tea slowly while pretending to focus on the newspaper. The TV in the corner played the local news, its volume just loud enough to steal attention from everything else.
[*In developments regarding last night's terrorist attack that shook the commercial district...*]
[*Police confirmed the explosion was caused by a smuggled bomb disguised as a commercial shipment...*]
[*The death toll has risen to 34, including 6 children. The bombings targeting the central market have sent shockwaves across the country...*]
[*Counter-terrorism forces stated that the suspected group is linked to an unknown organization believed to have been operating in the shadows for the past two years...*]
*Click.*
The TV turned off with a soft sound, and Han slowly raised his gaze. Before him stood Emma, staring at him with fiery eyes, the butter knife in her hand looking like a real threat.
"Really... the news? Now? While your son is turning into a ghost in this house, drowning in novels and delusions?"
"I was just..." he began, but his tone faltered.
Emma stepped forward, aggressively preparing breakfast with obvious frustration in her movements.
"Han, I swear, if I see another novel on his desk, I'll tear it to shreds. I'll burn his books. I'll throw his computer out the window!"
"Emma... let him be. He's just a boy, in his twenties. Let's not suffocate him."
She glared at him with even greater anger until he lowered his eyes.
"A boy? In his twenties? And does twenty no longer require a person to start thinking? To look at life with responsibility?"
"He's slipping away, Han. Literally slipping away before our eyes... and you're just watching."
...
Leo finally arrived in the kitchen, dragging his bag over his shoulder, his tie crooked, his face resembling a surreal painting of exhaustion and disarray.
Emma looked at him, then at her husband, and said in a quiet voice, as if sentencing an inevitable reality:
"Like father... like son."
"Did you even sleep?" she asked.
"Not much..." he answered, then paused.
"I had a nightmare..."
His words fell heavily. And suddenly, his reality seemed clearer than ever. He no longer pretended to be energetic. No longer hid his fear or tension.
"A nightmare?" Emma replied with concern, stepping closer.
"Yeah... no... I don't know how to describe it. It was more than a dream. I was there. I saw indescribable things... ruin... blood... fog... corpses..."
"And voices... voices in my head..."
He closed his eyes, as if everything he described was rushing back to him now, pouring over him like a flood.
Emma looked into his eyes and saw something she'd never seen before.
Emptiness.
It wasn't just a passing phase. Something had changed.
She stepped closer, placing a hand on his head, and said in a soft voice, unlike her usual shouting:
"Leo, listen to me..."
"All these things you love... novels, games, anime... I know they make you happy. I know you see something in them that you don't find in this world."
"But don't make them your only refuge. Don't let reality slip through your fingers."
"At some point, you'll find yourself lost, unable to tell the difference between who you are... and who you pretend to be."
"Dreams are beautiful, yes... but escaping into them forever? That's destruction."
Silence.
Her words pierced his heart, but Leo didn't respond. He just looked at the ground, then muttered:
"I'm running late. I'll eat on the way."
Just as he was about to leave, his father called out:
"Wait."
He handed him a small package neatly wrapped in brown paper.
"Something you ordered a while ago."
Leo took it without examining it. Without asking.
"I'll check it later."
And he left.
He left, unaware that this small step outside the door...
Was the last step in this world of his.
...
Emma sat back down.
"What did you give him?" she asked, her voice laced with warning.
"A novel... a new one. A limited edition, the kind he likes."
"A novel? Han, you didn't understand a thing..."
But he didn't hear the rest of her words.
Because he was staring at the door, his heart heavy with something.
As if his son would never return the same again.