I had to be dreaming. I was sure of it. I felt insubstantial, floating among the stars, as if I was looking at a photo of outer space.

Those photographs are fake, because nothing we could see with our eyes could be so beautiful and magical as what I see now. The universe of my dreams was shining with a thousand colours of nebulae, galaxies of all sizes and countless stars.

My dream may sound boring to you.

In fact, all dreams are; except for our very own.

Our dreams mean a lot more to ourselves because they show us what is almost impossible to communicate. Like looking in a mirror. A reflection of our minds.

In this case, the reflection of my mind materialised as an indigo, wooden door inside an ivory frame with golden ornaments and decorum. It emanated light, warmth and ecstasy.

My mental body instinctively tried to reach it, like a moth to a flame.

I extended my hand, wanting to open it, even though I knew I shouldn't.

"Why do you doubt, Lume?"

Words came into my mind, my own voice, but they were not my thoughts. "It's time, allow yourself to be free. Leave the past, and your guilt, behind. It’s time to live."

"Stop!" I cried sharply "Showing me the past is just torture! Who do you think you are!?"

"I am your undeveloped potential. The repressed possibilities, the magic you are ashamed of... I am the genie in the lamp waiting to be released, to fulfill all your desires, I am-"

"You're just a formless voice, a parasite to my suffering! That's why you make me relive the worst moment of my life!"

"By rejecting me, you reject yourself..."

The indigo door lost its form and color, seeming to become a liquid akin to water. But instead of falling from the frame, it remained contained, at the edge of the door. I saw myself reflected in it as if it were a mirror.

I looked as I always wanted to be.

The face of my reflected self, remained the same as my own: brown hair, dark blue eyes, and a small scar over my nose bridge. He was dressed in the uniform of the Knights of Infinity, an invisibility robe over his shoulders.

His body was protected by Kavacha, the ideal impenetrable armor. It manifested itself as an invisible mist, that occasionally emitted a subtle indigo glow that revealed its presence.

In his right hand he held excalibur, the archetype of the most powerful sword. It looked like a medieval crystalline sword. Inside of it, a small universe was shining with the golden lights of newborn stars.

In his left hand he carried the aegis, the ultimate shield projection. It was made of glass and carved with runes and glyphs of power that emitted a green glow.

I got closer to the door frame and the reflection. Mesmerised by what could have been and what I could have become.

My mental universe started to fill with the light emanating from the door.

For the first time in a long time I felt complete, happy.

I had to open it ...

I wanted to open it ...

...I needed to open it.

"ENOUGH!" I screamed, resisting succumbing to temptation. Freeing myself from the door’s enchantment.

My voice echoed throughout the dream, causing the mirror to fracture and the vision to disappear.

The cracks of the reflection spread through the door frame and beyond, breaking the universe.

When the fragments disintegrated, there were no more imaginary stars, or nebulae. Everything had been reduced to nothing.

In this primordial state of my mind, I wandered through the darkness aimlessly for an eternity, until, in the distance, I heard a sound from reality rescuing me from the depths of the dream.

...

I heard my alarm, and I was no longer sleeping, but the universe of my dreams was now in my bedroom. I was levitating over my bed, snuggling up between the galaxies and stars of my imagination.

The fantasy ended suddenly. before I understood what was happening, I fell into the bed.

"That dream... again..."

I stared at the silhouettes on the roof formed by the dawn light seeping through my bedroom window, I lost myself in thought gazing upon them.

Any sane person should be scared of what had just happened, but instead, I was relieved to have a private bedroom this year and save myself explanations to another colleague from the faculty.

Having to explain that I am a magician and, if someone wants to do magic, they need to be willing to play with delirium and fall into madness from time to time.

Or explaining that the scary part was not that I was floating over my bed, but it happening without me trying it.

This was the fifth time this month that I woke up in the middle of some "involuntary miracle".

That shouldn’t happen, because doing magic is a conscious act in which our will is imposed over the universe.

It is true that many people do magic without knowing it, like when someone uses their imagination and draws what they see, bringing their ideas to the material world; but what happened to me was equivalent to painting the Sistine Chapel while sleeping.

Nothing that breaks the laws of the material world can be achieved without trying really hard.

Especially when I try to make my days more mundane and monotonous as possible since I abandoned the craft.

For seven years I had tried to keep myself sane, and forget everything I had known and had seen.

When it was time to decide on a profession, I decided to study physics, one of the enemies of magic.

In fact, all sciences are. They try to create an objective world, where there is only one reality and one logical answer that describes everything. Conversely, magic is subjective and logic does not matter. If you believe it, it becomes real.

That's why the world of the data and numbers, with no room for miracles, is all I needed now.

My second alarm rang.

There was no point dwelling on it. The faster I got those thoughts out of my mind, the better, and the best way to take away power from an idea is to stop thinking about it.

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(this was a little short... It have a lewd part 2, I don't think they allow it. so it  will be in my patreon! Though you are not loosing too much! I hope to have the next episode as soon as possible!)