"Dream Within a Dream"
Lin Xia woke up from that dream again.
She fumbled for the bedside lamp, and warm yellow light dispelled the darkness. The city at 3 a.m. was still bustling, with distant skyscrapers casting slender beams of light through the gaps in the curtains. She wiped cold sweat from her forehead, her fingertips still trembling slightly.
How many times had she had this dream? She couldn't remember. It was always that silver-white room, surrounded by mirrors reflecting countless versions of herself. Every time she tried to touch the mirror surface, she would fall into another dream, like tumbling down an endless corridor.
She got up and went to her desk, opening her laptop. The blue light from the screen was particularly harsh in the darkness. Squinting, she opened a document and began recording this recurring dream. The document was already filled with similar descriptions, with the earliest entry dating back three months.
"Dreamed of that room again. This time I counted - there were 127 reflections of me in the mirrors. When I reached out, the mirror surface suddenly turned into water, and I fell through, then..."
Lin Xia's fingers paused on the keyboard. Then what? She frowned, her memory suddenly becoming fuzzy. It was always like this - once she entered the second dream, she would forget most of the details upon waking, leaving only an indescribable sense of unease.
She closed the document and opened a forum. It was a dream research forum she had recently discovered, filled with discussions about lucid dreaming and multiple dream layers. As she quickly browsed through the posts, one title caught her attention: "Are You Having the Same Dream?"
The scenario described by the poster made Lin Xia hold her breath - a silver-white room, endless mirrors, and that falling sensation. She immediately clicked on the poster's profile. The username was "DreamWalker," last active yesterday.
Lin Xia's hands trembled slightly as she quickly typed a private message: "Hello, I'm having the same dream. Can we talk?"
The wait for a reply felt excruciatingly long. Lin Xia got up to pour herself a glass of water. The cold liquid sliding down her throat did nothing to quell her growing anxiety. She walked to the window and pulled back the curtain. The city's neon lights flickered in the night, like countless watching eyes.
Suddenly, her computer chimed with a new message notification. Lin Xia practically ran back to her desk.
"Tomorrow at 3 p.m., by the mirror sculpture in Central Park," the reply read. "I'll be wearing a gray coat."
Lin Xia stared at the screen, her heart racing. She checked the time - 3:15 a.m. Less than twelve hours until the meeting.
The next afternoon, Lin Xia arrived at Central Park half an hour early. The spring sunlight was warm but not harsh, and the mirror sculpture refracted colorful light patterns. Standing by the sculpture, watching the passing crowd, she suddenly felt ridiculous - maybe it was just a coincidence, maybe the person wouldn't show up at all.
"Lin Xia?"
A deep male voice came from behind. She turned to see a man in a gray trench coat. He looked to be in his early thirties, with sharp features and an indescribable weariness about him.
"I'm Chen Mo," he said. "DreamWalker."
Lin Xia noticed the dark circles under his eyes, clearly suffering from insomnia as well. They found a bench to sit on, sunlight filtering through the leaves to create dappled patterns on the ground.
"When did it start?" Chen Mo asked.
"Three months ago," Lin Xia replied. "You?"
"About the same." Chen Mo pulled out a notebook from his pocket. "I've been recording every dream. At first they were just ordinary dreams, but they've been getting clearer. That room, those mirrors..."
"And the falling sensation," Lin Xia continued. "Every time I fall into another dream, but I can't remember the details when I wake up."
Chen Mo nodded: "Same here. But recently, I've started to remember some fragments." He flipped through his notebook. "Last night, I dreamed I was running down a corridor with doors on both sides, each leading to a different scene."
Lin Xia felt a chill run down her spine: "I've had similar dreams!"
"This isn't an ordinary dream," Chen Mo lowered his voice. "I've researched extensively, consulted sleep experts. They say it might be some kind of subconscious projection, but I don't think so."
"Then what do you think it is?"
Chen Mo looked directly into her eyes: "I think we've been chosen."
At that moment, Lin Xia's phone buzzed. It was a text from an unknown number: "Be careful of Chen Mo. He's not real."
Lin Xia looked up sharply to find Chen Mo watching her with a strange expression. The sunlight fell on his face but cast no shadow.
"What's wrong?" Chen Mo asked.
Lin Xia's throat felt dry: "N-nothing."
Chen Mo suddenly smiled: "You got a text, didn't you?"
Lin Xia instinctively shrank back: "How did you know?"
"Because I've received them too," Chen Mo said. "From another 'me.'"
Lin Xia felt the air around her grow thick, the sunlight seemed to dim. She tried to stand up but found her body wouldn't move.
"Welcome to the real world," Chen Mo's voice became hollow. "Or should I say, welcome to the true dream."
Lin Xia felt everything go black. When she opened her eyes again, she was standing in that familiar silver-white room. But this time, the reflections in the mirrors weren't her - they were countless Chen Mos.
"This is..." Her voice echoed in the room.
"This is the dream interlayer," Chen Mo's voice came from all directions. "We're all trapped here."
Lin Xia turned to see Chen Mo standing in the center of the room, his body becoming transparent, like a hologram made of data.
"We're all test subjects," he said. "This city, this world, they're all virtual. They've trapped us here, observing our reactions."
Lin Xia felt a splitting headache as memories came flooding back. She remembered now - she wasn't some ordinary office worker, but a programmer who had worked on a virtual reality project. Chen Mo was her colleague, they had discovered a system vulnerability together, tried to escape...
"Now you understand," Chen Mo's figure was fading. "We have to find the exit, or we'll be trapped in this loop forever."
Lin Xia looked at the surrounding mirrors and suddenly realized something. She reached out to touch the mirror surface, but this time instead of turning into water, it flowed like mercury.
"Follow me," she said.
Together they passed through the mirror into a pure white space. Countless data streams flowed through the air like glowing ribbons.
"This is the core program," Lin Xia said. "We can..."
Before she could finish, the entire space began to distort. Alarm bells rang, and red warning messages flashed in the air.
"They've found us!" Chen Mo shouted. "Go!"
Lin Xia felt her consciousness fading. The last thing she saw was Chen Mo pushing her toward a glowing exit, while he himself was swallowed by the data streams...
She opened her eyes with a start, finding herself lying in a laboratory pod. Staff were busy shutting down equipment, the harsh fluorescent lights making it hard to keep her eyes open.
"Experiment terminated," a voice said. "All participants to be awakened immediately."
Lin Xia struggled to sit up, looking at the adjacent pod. It was empty, the control panel displaying: "Subject 0427, Status: Lost."
Her heart sank. Chen Mo hadn't made it back.
From that day on, Lin Xia began frequently dreaming of that silver-white room. Sometimes she would see Chen Mo's reflection in the mirrors, but whenever she tried to approach, he would disappear.
She quit her job and began investigating the virtual reality project. But all records had been erased, as if it had never existed.
Until one day, she received an anonymous email containing only a set of coordinates and a time.
Following the coordinates, Lin Xia arrived at an abandoned factory on the outskirts of the city. In the dimly lit basement, she found a still-running virtual pod, inside which lay a familiar figure.
It was Chen Mo.
His body was connected to countless tubes, as if trapped in an eternal dream. The control panel flashed a message: "Dream Layer: 997."
Lin Xia's trembling hand hovered over the activation button. She knew that if she entered that world again, she might never return.
But she had no choice.
She lay down in another virtual pod and closed her eyes. In the last moment before consciousness faded, she thought she heard Chen Mo's voice:
"Welcome back."
Darkness swallowed everything