Another Life, Another World, Another Ending

Monday. Again.

Daniel sat at his desk in class, staring blankly at his notebook. The teacher's voice droned on, but he wasn't listening. His mind was still in the war.

Still hearing Casner's voice.

Still seeing the machines closing in.

Still feeling the world collapse around him.

He squeezed his hands into fists, trying to steady himself. But nothing could shake the feeling in his gut.

He had tried to fight back.

He had tried to change the dream.

And it had made everything worse.

His hands trembled slightly as he turned to a fresh page in his notebook.

I need to figure this out.

Because this wasn't just some weird recurring dream. It was something more. Something bigger.

And if it kept happening, he needed to learn the rules.

The First Rule: The Dream is Real.

Daniel wrote it down, pressing his pen harder than he meant to.

These weren't normal dreams. They weren't fragments of his subconscious or random fantasies.

They were lives.

Complete, fully realized lives, with people who felt real.

People who didn't know they were going to disappear.

People who begged him not to forget them.

He swallowed hard.

Sophia. Lily. Casner.

They were real.

At least, they had felt real.

And that meant—

The deaths were real too.

The Second Rule: Every Dream Has a Countdown.

Daniel tapped his pen against the page, thinking.

Both times, the dream had lasted two days—Saturday and Sunday.

And then, at midnight on Sunday, the world collapsed.

But in the war, he had felt something else.

The dream had lasted longer.

He had lived there for years before waking up in that field.

Which meant...

The dream-time wasn't fixed.

Some worlds lasted decades. Others only a weekend.

But no matter how long he lived in them—

They always ended on a Sunday night.

The Third Rule: The World Will End.

It didn't matter where he was.

It didn't matter what kind of life he had.

It would always fall apart.

Every world, every life, every person—

Gone.

The pattern was unbreakable.

He closed his eyes, remembering Lily clinging to him as their world shattered.

Remembering Casner's panicked face as the sky split open.

Remembering that voice, whispering through the void—

"Don't forget about us when you wake up."

His grip on the pen tightened.

It wasn't fair.

These people deserved to live.

And if there was a pattern, if there were rules—

Then there had to be a way to break them.

*****

Lunch.

Marcus found him sitting alone at a table, deep in thought.

"Dude, you're in full existential crisis mode again." He plopped down across from Daniel. "You have another one of your trippy dreams?"

Daniel hesitated.

Then, instead of brushing it off, he grabbed his notebook and slid it over.

Marcus frowned. "What's this?"

"The rules," Daniel said.

Marcus scanned the page. His playful smirk faded.

"Wait. You're actually serious about this?"

Daniel nodded. "It's not just dreams, man. It's real."

Marcus scratched his head. "Okay… let's say I believe you. That you're actually living different lives every weekend. How do you know you're not just making all this up in your head?"

Daniel exhaled. He had been asking himself the same thing.

Then he flipped to a blank page.

And wrote:

Prove it.

"If I know it's coming," he said, "then I should be able to test it."

Marcus leaned back in his chair. "You mean, like, predicting the future?"

"Kind of," Daniel said. "But I think I need something better. Something solid. Something I can bring back."

He looked at his hands.

What if he tried to take something from a dream-world and wake up with it?

Would that even be possible?

Only one way to find out.

The Fourth Rule: I Can Fight Back.

Daniel wrote it down, underlining it twice.

The moment he had stopped the machines in the war, the whole world had reacted, like reality itself had noticed what he was doing.

He had power in these dreams.

Not a lot. Not enough to stop the collapses.

But enough to interfere.

Enough to break things.

And if he could break things…

Maybe he could find a way to escape.

Or at least—

To save someone.

*****

That night, Daniel lay awake in bed, staring at the notebook in his hands.

The weekend was coming.

Another life.

Another death.

Sigh...