The Boy Who Returned Dreams

Eli had always been a quiet kid. The kind teachers forgot about until roll call reminded them he was there. He wasn’t bad at school, not really—just invisible. His clothes always hung a little loose, hand-me-downs from a cousin, and his sneakers were scuffed, the laces frayed like white worms dangling across the linoleum floors.

He’d gotten used to the silence of being ignored, but at night, silence was the one thing he didn’t have.

Because at night, Eli could dream other people’s dreams.

It started the summer he turned twelve. The house was hot, swampy with July air, the ceiling fan above his bed spinning slow and useless. He remembered staring at the ceiling, half-asleep, when suddenly the room tilted, colors drained, and then—he wasn’t in his bed at all.

He was flying.

Not like in the cartoons, arms stretched forward in a heroic pose. No, he was strapped into the cockpit of a small biplane, the wind roaring in his ears, the fields patchworked green and gold beneath him. He laughed out loud, the sound torn away by the slipstream. It felt real. Too real.

When the plane landed, his heart still buzzing with adrenaline, Eli woke up in his room again.

The next morning, on his walk to school, he passed Mrs. Delgado watering her potted plants. Her robe was cinched tight against the morning chill, and steam curled from the mug in her hand.

“Good morning,” Eli said, his voice soft.

She looked up, surprised. “Well, good morning, Eli. You’re up early.”

He shrugged. “Couldn’t sleep.”

Mrs. Delgado smiled faintly, then paused. “You ever have one of those dreams that just… sticks with you?”

Eli nodded, unsure what to say.

“I was flying last night,” she said, her voice distant. “In one of those old red planes. My dad used to take me up when I was little. Scared me half to death, but I loved it.”

She chuckled, more to herself than to him, and turned back to her plants.

Eli stood there a moment longer, heart thudding. The red plane. The cockpit. The roar of the wind.

It hadn’t just been a dream.

It had been hers.

— • —

At first, it was fun. Like having a secret superpower no one could take from him. He started experimenting. He’d fall asleep thinking about someone—a classmate, a teacher, even the old man who ran the corner store—and if he focused hard enough, he could tumble into their dream.

Some nights he was a pirate on a stormy sea, other nights a running back breaking through the line to win the State championship. Once, he was a dog, bounding across a backyard, ears flopping with every joyful leap.

It was intoxicating. Until it wasn’t.

The dreams had become nightmares.

— • —

He didn’t mean to slip into Claire Jensen’s dream. She was the prettiest girl in his grade, the kind who always seemed untouchable, orbiting above everyone else in a solar system of friends and whispers. Eli had just wanted to see what she dreamed about—maybe prom, maybe some perfect version of herself.

Instead, he dropped into darkness.

The dream smelled of mildew and rot. He was in a basement, the air damp and choking, pipes dripping overhead. Claire was there, but younger, maybe eight or nine, curled in a corner, knees hugged tight. A man’s shadow loomed in the doorway. Eli’s chest tightened with fear that wasn’t his own—it was hers.

The shadow stepped forward. Eli screamed, and the sound tore him back to his room, sweat soaking his sheets.

The next day at school, Claire’s eyes were rimmed red, her hands trembling as she clutched her books. She didn’t look like the untouchable girl everyone adored. She looked small.

Eli couldn’t shake the memory. For the first time, he wondered if maybe this gift wasn’t a gift at all.

— • —

Weeks went by. The dreams kept pulling him deeper, as though the more he dipped into other people’s lives, the harder it became to stay in his own. He started waking up with headaches, his body sore as though he’d been running, fighting, hurting.

He didn’t just witness the dreams anymore. He carried pieces of them. The fear, the joy, the anger—it clung to him like smoke in his lungs.

One night, he slipped into his father’s dream.

His father wasn’t a cruel man, just tired, ground down by double shifts at the plant and bills that never stopped arriving. Eli expected his father’s dream to be about fishing on the lake or watching baseball like they sometimes did on Sundays.

Instead, he found himself standing on the plant’s assembly floor, the machines towering, deafening. His father was younger here, shoulders square, but there was blood on his hands—literal blood, dripping, pooling, staining his clothes. Workers screamed. Sirens blared.

Eli stumbled back, heart pounding. He woke gasping, only to find his father in the kitchen the next morning, staring into his coffee like it might swallow him whole.

Eli knew better than to ask.

— • —

By autumn, Eli dreaded sleep.

He tried to stay awake—video games, TV reruns, even splashing cold water on his face—but sooner or later, exhaustion dragged him down, and he’d find himself in someone else’s dream.

He began keeping a notebook, scribbling down what he saw. Dreams of laughter, of terror, of secrets people never spoke aloud. He knew things about them now, things no one was supposed to know.

He knew that Mrs. Delgado still cried at night for her father.

He knew Claire Jensen had scars no one could see.

He knew his own father carried guilt that kept him chained to the past.

And he knew that when you carry too many dreams, they stop being theirs. They become yours.

The first time he told someone, it didn’t go well.

He whispered it to his best friend Marcus at lunch, his voice low. “I think I can see people’s dreams.”

Marcus laughed, a spray of milk from his carton. “Dude, what? That’s the dumbest superpower ever. Better off wishing you could fly.”

“I have flown,” Eli said quietly.

But Marcus had already moved on, joking about the cafeteria pizza.

Eli didn’t try again.

— • —

The turning point came one bitter December night. Snow drifted past his window, muffling the world into silence. Eli pulled the covers tight, too tired to fight sleep.

He woke in a dream of fire.

A house was burning, flames licking at the windows, smoke choking the air. A little boy stood inside, screaming for his mother. Eli tried to run to him, but his feet sank into the floor, heavy as stone.

The boy’s cries ripped through him. Eli shouted until his throat tore, and suddenly—he was awake.

Except his room smelled of smoke.

He sat up, heart hammering. Outside his window, across the street, orange flickers lit the night. A real house. Real fire.

And a real boy screaming.

Eli didn’t think. He bolted into the cold, feet bare on the snow, racing toward the flames. By the time firefighters pulled the boy out, Eli was coughing, lungs raw, but he didn’t care. The boy lived.

The dream had been a warning.

— • —

After that, Eli understood.

The dreams weren’t just entertainment. They weren’t just nightmares to suffer through. They were pieces of people, fragile and hidden, sometimes dark, sometimes luminous. And maybe—just maybe—they were a way for him to help.

He couldn’t save everyone. He couldn’t carry every burden. But he could listen. He could bear witness. He could remind himself that even the people who seemed untouchable, like Claire, or unreachable, like his father, were more complicated than anyone knew.

Sometimes, he’d leave notes. Anonymous, folded slips of paper in lockers or under doors.

You’re stronger than you think.

It’s not your fault.

You are not alone.

He never signed them. He never needed to.

But one morning, as he opened his own locker, a note fluttered out.

Thank you.

I didn’t know anyone saw me.

I’m trying again.

Eli stared at the handwriting—looped, careful, unfamiliar. His chest tightened, not with fear, but something warmer. Something like light.

In the days that followed, he began to notice things. Claire laughing with a friend, her shoulders less tense. Marcus lingering after lunch, asking if Eli wanted to hang out. Even his father, humming under his breath as he fixed the porch light, the tune half-remembered from better days.

The dreams still came. Some were heavy, some strange, some beautiful. But Eli no longer feared them. He understood now: dreams weren’t meant to be stolen or buried. They were meant to be shared.

So he kept dreaming. Kept listening. Kept writing.

And slowly, the world around him began to change—not because he was loud, or famous, or powerful.

But because he saw people.

And because, for the first time, they saw him too.