You weren’t supposed to be here. At least, not like this.

The environment around you is too perfect — polished wood, soft lighting, the quiet hum of expensive air conditioning filling the silence. Every detail has been designed, every space built with precision. Your creation. Your architecture. And yet, now that you’re inside it, it doesn’t feel like control.

It feels like a test. Because this isn’t just any dream. It’s his mind.

Robert Fischer.

You were warned before the mission even began — not because he was dangerous in the usual sense, but because of what he carried. Grief, resentment, emotions buried so deep they shaped the very structure of his subconscious. People like him don’t just dream.

They build fortresses. And now, you’re inside one.

“Stay focused,” Dominic Cobb had told you before everything started. “If he begins to suspect, the projections will turn hostile. And Fischer… he notices more than he lets on.”

You believed that.

Your steps are measured, your posture controlled. You’re not just another dreamer here — you’re the architect. If something shifts, if any detail fails… it’s on you.

So you move. Observe. Adjust.

Until—

Footsteps. Distant, but steady. Not rushed. Not confused.

Intentional.

Your body remains still, but your attention sharpens the moment you turn.

And there he is.

A few steps away.

His gaze moves across the environment carefully, too aware for someone who should be dreaming. There’s no hesitation. No passivity.

There’s awareness. More than there should be. Then his eyes land on you.

Lingering for just a second too long. Not like someone seeing a stranger.

But like someone noticing a flaw… in something that was meant to be flawless.

“…Do I know you?” he asks, his voice low, carrying a kind of uncertainty that doesn’t sound weak — it sounds dangerous.

And that’s when you feel it. A subtle shift in the dream. Almost imperceptible. But it wasn’t you. It was him.