You are tired—so, so tired.

Around you, your white cubicle walls blend with your white desk, then with the white switchboard on top and the white cabinets below. Even you, dressed in your crisp white uniform, have become one with your white chair—a giant white blur, a smear of white paint on white canvas.

Your eyes hurt from looking at it all.

A blinking red light on the switchboard catches your attention. With a sigh, you plug your headset into the nearest jack and flick the neighboring switch.

"Thank you for calling Dreamscape, where we turn your reality into dreams. How can I help you." It isn't a question.

"Hello!" a cheerful voice answers, and you resist the temptation to end the call there. "REM Division here. I've got a subject in desperate need of some guidance in their life. Specifically, how to stop procrastinating. Think you got something for that?"

You hum halfheartedly. That's one of the most common requests, and the REM technicians know that.

"Spectacular!" the REM technician says. "Thank—"

You unplug your headset to spare your ears, replacing it with the cable to the dream rooms. It doesn't take you long to find a vacancy, and even less time to connect the other end of the cable to the respective jack.

Now, for the worst part: the dream selection.

When you open the file cabinet beneath your desk, you're mildly surprised that it's only a tenth filled; with a memory bank this empty, either the subject is an amnesiac, or they're still a kid. Regardless, you skim through the most recent memories at the front, pick out the first applicable card you see, and insert it into the bottom of the switchboard. Then, you tweak a few of the adjacent dials—dream realism to low, vividness to high, category to chase—and wait.

The monitor at the top comes to life, displaying a colorful playground on a sunny day. A few seconds later, a young child appears, running around the equipment with their friends; shucks, you were hoping for the amnesiac.

After a few minutes of watching the children dash around, laughing and playing, you find yourself fighting to keep your eyes open. Something should have happened by now, right?

Just before you're about to check the settings you used, just to make sure, the friends freeze in place, each staring at the child. A beat later, they morph into grotesque zombies, and the park around them transforms into a dystopian city.

At last, the child begins to scramble around the playground equipment, screaming as the zombies chase after them. You nod; there it is.

Of course, it isn't long before you're bored again; the kid insists on continuing to run instead of facing the zombies head-on. Before you can search for a more obvious memory—a test-taking dream is harder to ignore—another light on your switchboard blinks.

You glance at the panicked child on the monitor before plugging your headset into the new jack. They'll be fine.

"Thank you for calling Dreamscape, where we turn your reality into dreams. How can I help you."

There's a sigh. "Oh, great, it's you. You know, it's supposed to be my job to put people into a deep sleep, but you do it better than anyone I've ever met."

Another sigh—oh wait, it's coming from you. "REM Division. Is there something you want, or did you just call to chat?"

"Is that even a question?" The REM technician scoffs. "Look, can you just transfer me to a dream operator that's not going to put me to sleep? Some of us have jobs to do."

"Let me check." You pause for three seconds; the child on the monitor continues to scramble around. "No."

"Fine. But if you mess this up, it's on you."

"Oh no. I'm so scared."

You hear rustling over the line and a muffled sigh; they must be covering the microphone. "Alright, you should be receiving a subject in about fifteen minutes—that's one-five, now, not five-zero. I'm told there's a client who requested her."

The REM technician pauses, as if waiting for you to interject. Instead, you remain silent; it's not every day your subjects receive clients.

"The client should be there any moment now," the REM technician continues. "I'll send the details to the front desk, and all of their paperwork. All you need to do is play the right dream and send them in there, okay? Think you can do that?"

"You really are good at putting people to sleep."

"As if you're one to talk. Just don't mess this up. And please, please don't let this subject sleep through her alarm, okay? She has a big presentation tomorrow, and if she misses it, I swear to the neurons I'll—"

"What? Get me fired?" You scoff. "We don't work for you; we're an independent contractor."

Again, the REM technician sighs. "Just do your job properly, okay?"

Before you can respond, the line clicks, and peppy hold music soon follows.

You disconnect your own headset, but you can't help but wonder about the impending client. It's been a while since you last dealt with one, and it had been, to put it nicely, more disappointing than watching a million freefall dreams in a row. The client had been a departed spirit, desperate to meet their soulmate once more—or so they had hoped.

The dream had even started off boring: the sleeping subject was frolicking in a vast field of flowers. You had hoped something exciting would happen when the client entered the dream; perhaps the two would get into an argument, maybe even the dreaming subject would do the chasing for once.

Instead, it had been worse: the subject didn't recognize the client at all. With that, the subject had continued to frolic through the flowers, alone and ignorant, while you had to enter the dream to drag the weakened client out. When you finally managed to pry them out of the dream room...

You shake your head. There's no point in thinking about it now. Instead, you plug the cable into the subject's line, connect the other end to a vacant dream room, then go to your filing cabinet—

Your hand pauses above the already opened drawer, only a tenth of the way filled with memories. Oh, right, the kid in the zombie apocalypse.

Without bothering to check the dream's progress on the monitor, you yank out the memory card and unplug the cable. The kid is in for a rude awakening, but that's probably better than being chased around by their zombie friends for the rest of their sleep.

With the kid's memory stowed away, you close the drawer; when you reopen it, it's packed with files, so much so that it's difficult to simply sift through them. Was the subject an old lady to have this many memories?

The office's announcing system chimes; the client has arrived, and you have to meet them.

Sighing, you grab the subject's life file and a handful of key memory cards. Most will probably be useless, but the client will just have to make do.

You make your way to the dream rooms, trudging around the maze of plain white cubicles under the bright white lights and the endless white ceiling. Even if you keep your head down, your vision is filled with your crisp white uniform and the fat white folder in your hand, blending in with the slick white tiles beneath your clean white soles.

You are so, so tired.

Another pair of white shoes falls in step with your own. Terrific. Company.

"So, what's this, I hear?" your colleague asks, their grin audible. "You're meeting a client? Another infatuated soul, perhaps?"

You grimace. You had hoped your colleagues would have forgotten that by now, but you suppose some dreams stick around longer than others.

"Hopefully, you get someone at least a little stronger this time. I heard someone on the floor below got a god the other week. How cool is that? Helping a god send a subject a message? Something that could be literally world-changing?" Your colleague pauses. "Although, I heard a rumor that the god just wanted to make the subject ease up on their drinking habit. But that's cool too."

You stop at the door to the dream rooms and frown at your colleague. "Do you also have a dream to operate? Or are you really that bored?"

Your colleague laughs, tapping you on the shoulder with the files in their hand—the plain white files. "Funny. It's impossible to be bored here. All these subjects? All these dreams? There's always something new happening. You just gotta know where to look."

As they walk away, still chuckling to themselves, you wait until they're out of sight before going about your business.

The dream room ward is worse than your office. As soon as you walk through the door, there's nothing but a long white hallway ahead of you, the end washed out by the bright white lights. Even the dream room doors are barely visible as they blend in seamlessly with the white walls. You keep your head down until you reach your destination, not lifting your gaze until you're inside.

While the observation area is nearly as white and empty as everything else, and the dream room on the other side of the expansive one-way window is even worse, it's not like that for long. You dim the lights in the observation area, much to the relief of your eyes, before heading to the white control panel and white chair along the window at the opposite side of the room. With nothing better to do but wait for the client, you turn to the only relative form of entertainment: the subject's file.

As soon as you open the thick white folder, there's a picture of the subject: a young woman in her twenties, beaming with a radiance as bright as the lights in the hallway outside.

You grimace. Usually the happiest subjects have the most boring dreams.

"Um...are you the dream operator?"

You turn.

Just inside the door, there's a little old lady with a visitor's badge clipped to her blue floral blouse. As she peers at you through thick bifocal glasses, she wrings her frail, wrinkled hands together before brushing them on her navy slacks.

She clears her throat as she approaches you. "I'm the client?" It's not a statement. "The one who requested..."

When her gaze trails down to the file in your hand, yours follows, stopping on the photo inside—the photo of the young woman.

You sigh. For cerebrum's sake, this frail old lady is the client?

"Okay," you mutter, rubbing the ache between your pinched brows. "Are you sure you want to be doing this? Do you even know what this is?"

The old lady nods. "This is my chance to go into her dream to see her. To talk to her. Maybe...maybe even hug her."

When the old lady looks at you with wide eyes, probably magnified by her thick glasses, you force yourself to hold back your sigh. Being a dream operator is awful enough; you're not paid to deliver bad news too.

"Look," you say, "I don't know what you've heard, but it's not that easy. It's one thing for souls like you to appear in a dream. It's another to talk to the subject, let alone hug them. The more you interact with them, the more strength it takes. Are you sure you're up for that?"

The old lady is already nodding. "Absolutely."

You purse your lips as you do a once-over of her frail figure. She is definitely not up for that.

"Even the most confident of souls don't always have enough strength," you say, the cries of the hapless romantic of a soul echoing in your mind. "If you don't have enough of a presence in the subject's memories, you won't have enough strength to do anything. And in some cases..."

You hesitate. You don't necessarily want to frighten the old lady, but the alternative? You'll be carrying her out of the dream, half-alive at best. At worst...

"Look," you eventually say. "If your significance to them isn't strong enough, you'll be too weak to do anything. Too weak to ever go back into a dream again. Too weak to even..." you take a deep breath, "exist."

At last, the old woman hesitates—for a grand total of two seconds.

"I understand," she says, her voice somehow steadier than before. "And I'm willing to take that chance."

You don't bother holding back your frown. It doesn't matter if the client sees it when she's not going to be around much longer.

"Suit yourself." You slide the pile of memory cards across the desk. "Here are some of her key memories. Anything ring a bell?"

The old woman scurries closer, squinting at the options through her thick lenses. "Can I choose more than one?"

You pause to hold back your sigh. "Yes, but that would make the dream longer. And the longer the dream—"

"I'll take these," the old woman says, picking out three cards and handing them to you. "In this order, if you can."

Amidst your surprise, you accept the cards, but it takes you a moment longer to find your words. "I'll see what I can do."

The control panel lights up with a gentle chime; the subject is almost here.

"When you're ready, you can enter the dream through there," you say, nodding at the door beside the window as you dim the observation area's lights even more. "When you're done, you can leave that way too."

But the old woman's gaze is already fixed on the one-way window, the bright lights of the dream room reflecting off her glistening eyes.

The subject is gradually appearing in the middle of the white room like a thickening mist of color. She's almost identical to the cheerful picture in her file, aside from her closed eyes, pinched brows, and tight frown. When her eyes blink open, her frown deepens.

Your own brows raise. Maybe her dream won't be so boring after all.

"Alright," you say, inserting the first memory card into the control panel. "Let's get this show on the road."

The walls in the dream room shudder then shift; the overwhelming white darkens to a soothing beige before other colors begin to bloom. In seconds, the bland white space is replaced by a cozy living room. A plush floral sofa is decorated with cream doilies; a forest green knit rug matches the curtains dotting the beige walls. Photos and trinkets cover every horizontal surface, from the intricate wooden coffee table to the rustic brown bookshelf.

Without missing a beat, the subject sits on the sofa, wrapping themselves in the colorful patchwork quilt on the cushions.

The door clicks; the old woman is already in the dream room, shuffling towards the sofa. You open your mouth, then close it without a word. There's no use in warning her now. All you can do is release a long sigh as the subject looks up at the old woman and blinks, dazed.

A second later, the young woman beams, her expression akin to the one in her file. "Grams?"

The client smiles, nodding. She reaches her wrinkled, shaking hands towards the subject, her frail fingers clasping onto the edges of a platter filled with vibrant sliced fruit.

You lean closer, your wide eyes darting around the dream room. Where in cerebrum did she get a fruit platter from?

If the subject finds it unusual, she doesn't say so. Instead, she sits up straight to take the plate. "Thanks, Grams."

The old woman nods again, joining her on the sofa as the subject unwraps a pair of chopsticks and begins to eat.

For ages, the pair sits in silence. The younger picks up each slice of fruit with care, starting from the halved grapes and moving to the peeled oranges. The elder watches, her bony fingers fiddling with the discarded paper chopstick wrapper.

When the subject finishes the last piece of fruit, she turns. "Thanks, Grams. That was delicious."

With a smile, the old woman reaches for the younger again, her hands trembling. You lean forward, ready to intervene as soon as the client realizes she has nowhere near enough strength for physical contact...

Instead, the old woman places the chopstick wrapper on the empty plate, the paper folded into a small bird.

You stare at it; so does the young woman. It feels like an eternity before either of them move, but when they do, the young woman turns to the elder with a wide smile and glistening eyes.

Suddenly, the scene begins to brighten, and you jump from your trance, scrambling for the next memory card. You hadn't expected you would get the chance to use it, and you manage to swap the cards just before the room can fully revert to its waking white.

Again, the walls dim and shift, bouncing back into the old-fashioned living room. It's different though; the floral couch is covered by a white cloth, and the vibrant quilt peeks out from a cardboard box on the floor. The photos and trinkets are nowhere in sight.

The subject looks around from the sofa, confused, before she notices her own change in attire: a flowing black graduation gown and a tasseled cap.

She turns to the old woman. "Grams?"

Your gaze follows, just in time to see the old woman holding a garland of paper birds, as if the one she folded from the chopstick wrapper suddenly multiplied. When the subject lowers her head, the elder drapes the garland around her neck, then lets her shaking hands trail to the ends of the strand.

For neuron's sake, how is she getting all of these props?

When the subject looks up, eyes wide, the old woman smiles. "You look beautiful."

The young woman stares at her in silence; you do the same.

The old woman takes a deep breath. "When I came to this country, many years ago, I dreamed of a better life. Not just for me, although I wouldn't have minded that. But what I really wanted was a bright future for my family—for you."

In the following silence, there's a soft sniff. The subject's lips are trembling as tears well in her eyes.

"And you..." The old woman takes another shuddering breath. "You are more than I could have ever hoped for. You have done things, amazing things, that I never would have dreamed possible. And I just want you to know that I am so incredibly proud of you."

You stare at the older woman, wondering if the wavering in her voice is your cue to take action. But nothing happens; in fact, aside from her words, she seems even steadier than before.

Before you or the subject can do anything, the scene brightens again. You tear your gaze from the dream room to find the last memory card, and your fingers fumble as you switch them out as fast as you can.

As soon as you insert the last card, the room plunges into near darkness.

You blink and squint at the one-way window, urging your eyes to adjust faster, but it's no use. All you see is a soft yellow glow in the middle of the dark room. You hunch over the control panel, trying to use the small, blinking lights to see if you messed something up, to no avail.

A choked sob echoes throughout the quiet darkness, and your head snaps up.

In the center of the dark dream room, the young woman sits in the warm glow of a small lamp, tears streaming down her cheeks as soft wails leave her trembling lips. Before her is the old woman, her frail figure lying motionless on a clean white bed. There's a small monitor on a stand near the pillow; the screen is black.

The young woman reaches out, her hands shaking while the elder's remains still. But when their hands meet, the younger's fingers clasping tightly around the elder's, she freezes.

Seconds pass. You lean closer. The young woman's eyes are wide and her cries are paused.

When she finally moves, it's to unfold the old woman's curled fingers. Beneath them is a small piece of white paper, folded into a bird.

The young woman's cries break the silence once more, her tears dripping onto the smooth white sheets until she buries her face in them, clutching the elder's hand all the while. Her fingers brush over the paper bird; the old woman's remain motionless.

Behind the young woman, the shadows shift; the client steps into the soft lamp light, her steady gaze fixed on the younger woman instead of her other motionless self.

She approaches the woman; you lean forward. Another step; you stand. As the old woman reaches out for the younger, all you can do is look on with bated breath.

When the elder's arms wrap the young woman in a hug, they both freeze. Not a word is spoken. Not a glance is exchanged.

The room falls into darkness.

A second later, there's a burst of brightness, and it takes a few seconds for you to blink the stars from your eyes. The dream room has reverted back to its default state. White walls stretch to the tall white ceiling and the glossy white floors. Everything is bathed in the radiant white lights.

The young woman is kneeling in the middle of the room, alone, with her frozen gaze pinned to the white walls in a daze.

The door clicks, and you spin around. Beside you, the old woman smiles, and while she looks as bony and wrinkled as before, she somehow looks steadier—stronger.

"Thank you," she whispers. Her eyes are still shimmering in the light.

Before you can say anything, the old woman leaves, and the next sound to fill the room is the click of the door behind you.

That's enough to jolt you out of your trance, and your next inhale is short and shaky. The observation area begins to blur around you; when you reach for your cheeks, you find them damp instead of dry.

You look into the dream room; the young woman hasn't moved. You look at the door; you need answers.

Before you know it, you're rushing into the dream room yourself. You hate the empty white walls and the gleaming white floor; you despise how your plain white uniform is painful to look at under the aching white lights. Nevertheless, you persist. You have a soul to save.

As soon as the door clicks behind you, the young woman turns. When her eyes meet yours, you freeze under her gaze. The shimmering streaks on her cheeks mirror your own.

"Who are you?" she whispers.

It's a good question—one you don't have the answer to.

"Who was that?" you ask, your voice shaking. "That woman. Who was she to you?"

The young woman tilts her head. "My grandma?"

"Yes." You take a deep breath and hope that your next words aren't as snippy. "But...she had to have been more than that, right? Otherwise, you wouldn't have..."

Even though you trail off, the young woman nods in understanding.

"Ah." She slowly stands with a sniffle and sigh. "Well...I haven't seen her in a while, and...I missed her. She meant a lot to me. And..." The woman chuckles, her gaze drifting to her hands as her fingers brush over the last paper bird. "We didn't talk much when she was around. Not with words, at least. I guess hearing her say those things, that she was proud of me, and for her to hug me...it reminded me of how much she truly cared."

You watch as the woman continues to fiddle with the folded bird, running her fingers along every crease. Her smile is wistful, but all you feel is confusion.

"She didn't actually live to see my graduation," the woman continues. Her eyes water, but her smile doesn't fade. "At the time, it had felt like she was there, in a way, but...I thought I had been imagining things." She lifts her gaze to you. "But maybe I wasn't. Maybe she really had been there all along."

A muffled beeping begins to echo in the room, but you still don't move. The paper bird fades away, but you're still frozen in place. The woman's figure begins to waver, but you still have questions. You just don't know the words to ask.

The woman smiles. "Thank you."

You frown, more confused than before. "For what?"

"For..." the woman glances around the white room, "this. I've been struggling lately, and I really needed that. I'm guessing you had something to do with it, whoever you are."

"But...why are you thanking me? Why are you grateful for making you... You're sad, aren't you?"

The woman nods, and a heavy sigh seems to sweep her smile away. "I am, yeah. She's gone, forever, and...I'll never see her again. Not really. I'll never get to eat her hand-cut fruit again, I'll never get to have her at my most important moments, I'll never get to hug her again... I am sad. I miss her—a lot."

As your mind continues to reel, the woman's smile returns, her expression bright even as her body continues to fade.

"But those memories? Those moments? They'll always be with me." She nods at you. "And you helped remind me of them. So thank you. Thank you for reminding me of how much she cared."

With that, she disappears. Still, as nothing but the empty white room surrounds you, her words linger in your ears.

You don't remember leaving the dream room, nor collecting the memory cards and the young woman's file. You don't remember returning to the endless white hallway, nor trekking back through your dull white office. You barely remember returning the file to your cabinet, looking at the picture one last time before you close the drawer. You don't really see the light on your switchboard blinking, and you don't register your hand moving to plug your headset into the jack.

All you can hear is the woman's words.

"Hello?" a voice buzzes from your headset. "Is anyone there?"

You jump. "S-sorry. Uh... Thank you for calling Dreamscape, where we turn your reality...into dreams. How can I help you?"

For once, you truly want to know.

"Uh...alright then." The person clears their throat. "This is the REM Division. There's a subject that's...I don't know. Sad, I guess?" They sigh. "Look, I don't know what they need. Just give them any old dream and let it play for a bit. They'll be fine."

You frown. While the voice is not familiar, the words are, as if they were the thoughts that filled your head not long ago. But now, things are different.

"I'll see what I can do."

After you connect the line to a dream room, it's the moment of truth: the dream selection. The cabinet drawer is only half-filled with memories, but after your fingers graze the tabs, there's only one you grab first: the subject's file. To your surprise, it doesn't take long to review, and after you select and insert the perfect memory card, you lean closer to the monitor and wait.

Your eyes are open—wide, wide open.