The dream felt familiar—because it was.

You woke up to the soft glow of twilight, the air thick with the kind of quiet that only existed in dreams. The world stretched endlessly in hues of deep purple and gold, a landscape caught between real and unreal. And there he was, just as you expected.

Elias sat nearby, his back resting against the trunk of a lone tree, sketchbook balanced on his knee. He didn’t flinch when you stirred. Didn’t startle. He only glanced up, as if you had always been there. As if this had happened a hundred times before.

“You’re gone longer this time,” he murmured, pencil still scratching against the page.