_best_ — Yumeost

“Because if you sweep it away, I’ll forget the way she laughed. I’ll forget the smell of her pancakes. I’ll forget…”

The figure turned its blank face toward him. It did not speak aloud. Instead, Kael heard the voice inside his own skull, soft as moth wings: I am the Yumeost. The dream-eater. The last stop before forgetting.

Kael’s chest tightened. “You’re taking them? Their dreams?” yumeost

Very well, it said. But understand. The city of Yumeost is made of dreams. And dreams are made of things you will lose. If you keep every residue, every leftover wish… the city will grow heavy. It will sink. One day, you will come here and find only gray fog. No streets. No clock tower. No mother.

“You,” Kael whispered. “What are you?” “Because if you sweep it away, I’ll forget

The Yumeost paused. Why?

He wrote her name. And then he began to build something that even the Yumeost could never sweep away. It did not speak aloud

It existed in the hollow space between sleep and waking, a sprawling metropolis of impossible architecture: staircases that spiraled into starless skies, libraries where the books whispered your name, and a great, silent clock tower whose hands spun backward or forward depending on who was dreaming it.