Chapter 4 The Door Between Worlds

Ava stood in front of a rusted freight elevator at the edge of an abandoned industrial park on the outskirts of town. Broken windows lined the sides of the crumbling brick building, and the wind carried the scent of old metal and dust. The kind of place you wouldn't walk into during the day-let alone past midnight.

And yet, this was where Leo said the door would appear.

"The Lucid Key only works in liminal spaces," he had told her earlier, voice steady but quieter than usual. "Places that exist between functions, between time. Forgotten places. Like you."

The words stuck with her.

Forgotten places. Forgotten people.

She had arrived alone-Leo insisted this part she had to do herself.

"No one can open it for you," he said. "If you're not ready, the door won't appear. If you force it, it'll break you."

Ava took a breath and looked at her palm. The faint symbol of the key shimmered like silver dust under her skin, barely visible until she focused. When she did, it pulsed gently, matching her heartbeat.

The elevator doors creaked as she stepped closer. They were stained with rust and graffiti, but something was different tonight. The space between them shimmered-like heat rising off asphalt.

She raised her hand.

The symbol on her palm glowed, and a line of light slid between the elevator doors, tracing their edges like a hidden outline. With a hiss of pressure and a groan of old gears, they slowly parted.

Inside was no elevator.

Instead, there was a hallway of white marble, softly glowing. The air inside shimmered like sunlight caught in a dream, and faint music drifted out-something orchestral, haunting, and impossibly beautiful.

Ava hesitated, her breath catching.

Beyond that door wasn't just a dream.

It was the Dreamworld.

The real one.

This wasn't a vision. It wasn't her mind shaping illusions.

This was the true plane of existence behind all sleep-where the Dreamweavers trained, lived, and protected the flow of dreams that bound humanity's subconscious together.

She stepped forward.

And the world changed.

---

Her first step echoed like thunder in a canyon. The second felt like walking on silk woven from moonlight. By the third, her shoes were gone, and her skin tingled with cool, electric air.

The hallway opened into a vast skybridge suspended in nothingness. Below and above her: constellations, rivers of stars, islands of floating earth covered in lush green forests and glowing lakes. Whole civilizations seemed to drift in bubbles-castles suspended in glass, markets in tree branches, oceans spiraling upward into the sky.

It was like walking inside the universe's imagination.

Ava stopped to catch her breath.

"I know," said a voice beside her.

Leo appeared, as if he'd stepped out of a ripple in the air. He wore the same jacket, but now his eyes glowed faintly silver, and his shadow stretched in ways it shouldn't.

"Every time I come back here, I still feel it. Like standing at the edge of everything we've ever dreamed."

"I thought I was supposed to do this alone."

"You were. I just came to show you the way to the Citadel."

"The Citadel?"

He pointed.

In the distance, high above the skybridge, a towering structure floated like a crown over a sleeping god-an enormous spire of marble and crystal, pulsing with soft golden energy. Bridges connected its many layers. Shapes moved across its surface-people, dream-creatures, winged beings of thought and memory.

"It's the center of the Dreamweaver Order," Leo said. "The strongest among us live there. Teach. Protect."

"And I'm just supposed to walk in?"

"You're not just anyone, Ava."

She looked at him, eyes narrowing. "You keep saying that, but no one will tell me why."

Leo hesitated.

Then: "Because Dreamweavers are born. Not made. But you... you're both."

She blinked. "What does that mean?"

"You're the first Dreamweaver who wasn't born here. You made yourself one. That hasn't happened in over a thousand years."

Ava went still.

"And the last person to do it," Leo added, "was the one who sealed away the Hollow the first time."

A weight dropped into Ava's chest.

Was this why she kept seeing it? Feeling its pull?

She wasn't just a bystander in this fight.

She was part of it.

---

The Citadel was more than just a building-it was a living organism, shaped by dreams and history. The outer levels were open to any Dreamwalker who found their way in-artists, lucid dreamers, visionaries. Ava passed through halls filled with paintings that moved and whispered, gardens that grew with emotion instead of water, libraries where the books sang their stories aloud.

Every corner revealed something stranger than the last.

A fountain that produced music instead of water.

A room that only existed if you closed your eyes.

A hallway where your footsteps echoed in languages you didn't speak.

And yet, it all felt... right.

Like she had been here before. In another life.

Leo guided her upward, through spiraling staircases and floating elevators made of clouds. Finally, they reached a large chamber shaped like an amphitheater, with silver stone seats carved into the walls and a platform in the center where a group of six figures stood waiting.

Each wore robes that shimmered with shifting colors, like oil on water. Their faces were human-but their eyes were galaxies.

The Council of Dreamweavers.

One stepped forward, a woman with copper skin and short silver hair.

"You are Ava Maren," she said.

Ava nodded slowly.

"You hold a Lucid Key forged from memory. You walked the Labyrinth alone. And now you cross the veil not as a guest, but as one of us."

"I didn't ask for any of this," Ava said, voice steady. "But I'm not backing away either."

The council members glanced at one another. A few smiled.

"You carry the echo of the First Weaver," the woman continued. "And the shadow has already found you. That means time is shorter than we hoped."

Leo stepped beside her. "We need to begin her training immediately."

The woman nodded. "Then she must take the Oath."

Ava raised her chin. "What oath?"

"To protect the world from itself. To safeguard dreams from despair. To never let the Hollow in."

A golden light formed in the air between them-like threads of sunlight woven into a symbol: a flame inside a circle, with wings on either side.

Without thinking, Ava placed her hand on it.

A wave of warmth, memory, and clarity rushed through her.

Suddenly she understood: the responsibility. The power. The danger.

This wasn't just a dream anymore.

It was a war.

And she had just chosen her side.