The Dream Designer

2081: Dreams as Tradable Commodities

In 2081, the last thing humans thought couldn't be traded — dreams — went on the market.

I'm a certified Dream Designer, license #D-1147. My job: design custom dreams for clients, then implant them via sleep pods.

Today's order was routine: a middle-aged businessman wants to dream of "walking on the beach with his first love."

I opened the editor. Template #D-2041: standard beach scene, ocean sounds, coconut scent, gentle breeze. Estimated implant time: 7 minutes.

"Confirm generation?" the system asked.

I clicked "Confirm."

Then I saw something that shouldn't exist.

The Anomaly: A 3-Second Fragment

The system glitched — or rather, it "saw" something it shouldn't have.

During the generation process, the system captured a dream fragment that didn't match any template.

The clip was short, ~3 seconds:

A faceless child, sitting in a white room. No door, no window — only a mirror. The reflection in the mirror wasn't the child's.

I replayed it frame by frame. In the mirror, a pair of adult eyes — and the emotion in them took me a while to recognize: fear.

Trace: Who Does This Dream Belong To?

I spent two hours tracing the fragment's source.

System logs showed: this wasn't "generated" — it was "residual". It came from the previous sleep pod user — ID C-8892.

C-8892's real identity: not found in the system. But I found last night's appointment record:

Client: Anonymous

Service: Total Dream Erasure (Lv.3 Deep)

Target: ALL dream memories (including subconscious residuals)

Total Dream Erasure — the most expensive service in the system. Lv.3 erases every dream memory from the user's consciousness, including ones they don't even know exist in their subconscious.

Why would someone erase ALL their dreams?

The Truth: C-8892 Was Stealing Dreams

I did something unauthorized: used admin access to retrieve C-8892's "dream residual backup".

Per protocol, erased dreams should be permanently destroyed within 24 hours. But the system has a hidden feature — "Dream Fragment Recycle Bin". All "erased" dreams aren't actually deleted; they're just tagged "discarded."

I found C-8892's dream residuals. Total: 147GB — roughly 8 years of dreams for an ordinary person.

I played them sequentially.

Most were chaotic: meaningless colors, distorted faces,断续的声音. But one dream sequence appeared 37 times — same scene, same child, same mirror.

And each time, the adult eyes in the mirror showed deeper fear.

In the 37th iteration, the mirror-person spoke. Voice quiet, but clear:

"Don't erase. Please. Don't."

The Reveals: C-8892 = Lin Mo, Former Chief Algorithm Engineer

It took me three days to identify C-8892.

He's Lin Mo, 42, former Chief Algorithm Engineer of the Dream Editing System itself — one of the original developers.

Lin Mo left the company three years ago. His "dream erasure plan" — every few months, he'd anonymously come in, erase a batch of dreams — now made sense.

He wasn't erasing his own dreams. He was erasing other people's.

Every dream in that 147GB? None of them were Lin Mo's.

He'd been using a prototype machine — the original version of the Dream Editing System — to extract dreams from real people without consent, then implant them into his own dream space as a warning.

The Twist: The Child in the Mirror Was Me

I re-opened the 147GB residual. Frame-by-frame, I examined that mirror.

The adult eyes in the mirror — they were mine.

Not Lin Mo's. Not a stranger's. Mine.

Which meant: the crying child in the mirror — the faceless child — was my dream. Lin Mo had extracted it and implanted it into his own dream space.

I suddenly felt cold. I've never dreamed of "a crying child in a mirror" in my entire life. But this dream appeared 37 times in Lin Mo's residuals.

One explanation: Lin Mo wasn't "stealing" dreams — he was "implanting" them. He used the prototype to implant his own dreams into other people's subconscious.

The Consequence: System Shutdown

In December 2081, the Dream Editing System issued an emergency notice:

"Effective immediately: suspend all Lv.2+ dream erasure services. System security vulneability discovered — potential for unauthorized external dream fragment implantation."

Under the notice, one comment went viral:

"Have you ever wondered: the dream you had last night — was it really YOURS?"
— Anonymous user

I looked at that comment, remembering Lin Mo's question in his letter: "That mirror you saw — who's holding it now?"

The mirror is in my hands now. But what's reflected in it — it's not my face anymore.

What if your dreams aren't yours? What if someone else's fear is the only thing you see when you close your eyes?

Next: The Simulator's Crack →