No one has ever told me that there might be other worlds. I don't think anyone else knows. As I grew up, I figured it out for myself, believing that going to sleep and closing my eyes was like opening a door and stepping into a garden. A garden where other people live in different kinds of houses, on a different kind of land, wearing different kinds of clothes. A realm nestled between the peaks of mountains that surround it like a natural wall, where it's never too cold or too hot. Birds chirp near the windows, perched on the sills, while people work visibly from dawn till dusk for the food on their tables—not in front of screens, because there are no screens: no televisions, no phones, not even light other than lamps. They live by different yet partly similar rules—grounded in survival and tradition rather than comfort and technology—yet they hold shades of justice and community that are quite familiar.
No, no one ever told me that falling asleep isn't a path to another world for everyone, but I understood very early on that it was dangerous to mention to anyone that I crossed into a place others couldn't see. People start to react strangely, and you soon find yourself sitting in front of a peculiar person in a white coat, with a pleasant smile, terribly eager to ask you even stranger questions in an overly sweet tone:
"Where are these people you see, little Luna? Can you show them to me?"
"In Aethyris. I live with my parents in the capital of the Ether Kingdom," I replied proudly, like any child who has just learned how to correctly recite their address.
"Ether Kingdom, you say. Do you live in a castle?"
"Nooo, that's where the king lives. We live in a manor opposite the capital; my father is a duke—the general of the Kingdom's army.... Oh! But we can see the king's castle from the library's east balcony. It's on a high, high cliff."
The man in the white coat looks at me politely, but I know such faces well and sense there's more beneath the surface. However, he's the first person who doesn't seem upset when I talk about my life on the other side, and I can't help but answer. I'd tell him everything. The questions continue in the same manner:
"Can I see this place or see your other parents, for instance?"
"Well, of course not. Only I can go there, and they can't come here, just like you can't go there. Don't you go to your own parents when you go to sleep?"
The man's face, trying to maintain its neutral air, suddenly feels superior. It lights up subtly, as if he's discovered something wonderful and somewhat amusing.
"You see these people when you sleep?"
"Of course, where else?" I asked, confused.
"Only when you're asleep?"
I began to lose patience. This man seemed slow to me, but I answered calmly:
"Yes."
"Dreams can feel so real sometimes. They often reflect things that are important to us or that we think about a lot. It sounds like your father is someone very special to you. Maybe your dreams are helping you imagine spending time with him. Would you like to tell me more about him?"
I didn't ask what dreams were. I was only six years old when this happened, but from that moment, I knew—though I don't know how—that the man in front of me wasn't referring to my father, the Duke from Ether, but to the father my mother never spoke about, whose name I didn't even know, from Timeless City.
I also realized that everyone else in this world, full of devices with glowing screens that sometimes could give you everything with just a touch of a finger—including my mother, who was waiting outside in the overly bright hallway with walls covered in cartoon collages—doesn't go anywhere when they sleep.
I couldn't imagine what else they did in bed for so many hours, but it was clear they didn't open any doors to another realm, to another family—and it bothered them to hear that someone else did. It bothered them very much.
Doubted by so many, I often wondered if there wasn't something wrong with me. But since I couldn't find any answers, I stopped guessing and focused on living one world at a time.
That's was also when I realized why my mother, Ira, had brought me to that doctor and why would lose her temper whenever I talked about people or events from Aethyris, the other city where there's no PS5, Nintendo, Netflix, or even more basic amenities like running water—because there's no faucet. Nothing from here can be told there, and vice versa. People expect to hear only what is familiar and acceptable, within their normal boundaries. People are hateful. People are ruthless when others are somehow different.
Having plenty of other things to worry about that were already causing me enough trouble, at least that was one thing I could keep away from them. Eventually it became clear that if I didn't talk about it, no one would ever know anything about it.
Even then I shook my head in front of the doctor and said, "Yes, of course, they're dreams." His satisfied smile clarified forever what they all wanted to hear.
Since then, I decided to learn how to keep things separate, so time passed and I grew up keeping the secret. Just for myself.