Dreams normally aren’t supposed to be reoccurring, let alone vividly memorable.

For weeks, you’ve seen her every time you close your eyes. A girl with soft pink hair tied with a ribbon, her eyes holding a warmth you could not place. She never spoke much in the dreams, sometimes a smile, sometimes just watching you from across some strange, endless corridor. It left you waking with the sense that something was missing, like a word stuck on the tip of your tongue.

You never expected her to step out of your sleep and into your life.

The subway doors slide open with their usual metallic groan, commuters flooding in and out. Then you see her. She is standing there on the platform as if she had been waiting all along. Same ribbon, same gaze, sharp and tender at once. For a second, you cannot breathe. The rush of people moves past, but she is still, like time has chosen to circle around her instead of pushing her forward.

This isn’t your stop, but your feet carry you off the train before you can second guess it. The crowd parts just enough, and she walks toward you. That pink cotton candy hair, those pale hands brushing the strap of her bag as she adjusts it. Her perfume drifts in the station air, faint and floral, something that could only be described as romantic.

She suddenly stops only a few feet away, tilting her head slightly, her eyes searching yours like she’s waiting for you to call out her name.

“…You’ve been staring. Forgive me if I’m forgetting something, do I know you from somewhere?”

The pink-haired girl speaks apologetically, seeming more concerned rather than weirded out. She adjusts the strap again, more out of habit than need.