I have this dream.

I am lying on the floor of my bedroom, my mind smooth, clear and unsolid. In this dream, I have no name, no purpose and no presence. I am simply a body, existing on my bedroom floor.

The first thing I know in my existence is that my room is slightly too cold. A tiny chill of cool air weaves its way through my fingers and toes before prickling up my legs and down my arms to settle in my chest. It builds as the seconds pass—simultaneously a weight that pins me down and an absence that makes me float away. The uncomfortable sting is enough to motivate me to pull my vacant body up, and onto its feet. It is like my mind is liquid, and I can feel it slowly starting to freeze. 

Looking around, I see that my dream-room is not much different from my wake-room. It still has its familiarity in the books I’ve read, clothes I’ve worn, and pictures I’ve hung. Yet, there is something about the essence of the room and the shivers on my spine that prevents me from finding comfort in this familiarity anymore—it fills me with dread, and the grim feeling that it is in this room that I will die. 

Eventually I notice that there are faces in my windows. Strangely, each face looks identical to my own—my own face watching me from every angle. Their eyes follow me as I move between my windows to investigate, lips moving with silent judgements that I cannot decipher. I turn away from them, too concerned with my state of being a-little-too-cold to pay them any more attention.

I sit down in my chair and further survey my dream-room. Unlike my wake-room, the walls are lined with plants. They are a rich, vibrant green, and the vines are plentiful with leaves and scattered with yellow flowers. I feel them absorbing my exhales—transforming them into fresh air for me to breathe. We sit, breathing together for a while, but when I can no longer bear sitting and slowly freezing in my slightly-too-cold room, I get up and wander my four corners with unease. 

There is a watering can on my windowsill. Desperate to distract from the pinching coldness of my room, I pick it up, and task myself with watering the plants.

The faces in the windows whisper to each other urgently, but I ignore them entirely.

Watering my plants brings the feeling of blood flowing back into my veins. As I move from plant to plant, I grow warmer. So, after watering each plant, I start from the beginning and water them all again. And again. And again.

The faces in the windows begin to gesture at me, pleading me to stop, but I push their voices down to a deep part of my mind that I cannot access. They settle there, along with much of the reason and rationality of my conscience. I continue watering. Gradually, the leaves of my plants wilt and yellow, and as this occurs, my shivering ceases. I continue watering. My watering can does not seem to run low on water.

The faces frown at me. I pretend not to know why.

My plants are brown and hang low to the ground with hopelessness. I water them more. 

The faces begin to chant, their words penetrating the most silent parts of my mind: Look at the Half-Human, watering plants that are already dead.

I look around and see that my room is lined in death—that I am surrounded by rot and decay. I look into my mirror and see that I have no shadow, and that I am taller than I remember.

I am filled with a sickening, twisting feeling that makes me want to cut off my thumbs and melt, like a snowflake into water. Shuddering, I drop my watering can so that it spills out all the water, and sink into a ball in the puddle that grows on the floor. 

I do not move. While I wait to wake up, the faces in the windows whisper about the Half-Human turning to ice from the inside out.

But it is only a dream. It is merely a life to wake up from.