When Aurora hazily opened her eyes, it took a second for the sight of the bright emptiness around her to register. She was lying on her side, sprawled as though thrown, at the centre of a pure white floor that didn’t seem to exist. The ceiling and walls were also missing, creating the impression that she was suspended at the heart of a white void.

Blearily confused, Aurora pulled herself into a lazy sitting position and massaged her eyes. “What time is it…?” she mumbled thickly. It took another moment for her to realise that something was amiss, but only snapped awake when she noticed that she was alone.

Solitude wasn’t the only thing she noticed. Staggering to her bare feet haphazardly, she was shocked to see that her dark nightdress was gone – a flowing waterfall of ocean blue cloth in its place. The dress was unfamiliar, but undeniably beautiful. It hugged her form lovingly, cascades of cool silk fading to foamy white toward the hemline like waves washing onto the shore.

Unnerved, Aurora span on the spot and studied her surroundings – or rather, her lack of such. A single tiny petal, the colour of the sky, floated down from somewhere high above; she extended a bemused hand to catch it, stared at it for a moment, and then raised her eyes upwards. A dreamlike rain of the blue petals were falling from where the sky should have been, swirling and arching gracefully all around her in a slow cerulean ballet.

“What…?” she breathed, incredulous as the miniature petal resting on the skin of her palm dissolved into a droplet of water. She watched it run along the crease in her palm, hesitate a moment on the edge of her hand, and then fall as if in slow-motion to splash quietly on the invisible ground.

Aurora felt strangely disconnected from the scene, as though she wasn’t really there. The pain from a swift pinch of the wrist confirmed the impossibility that she was awake, but the surreal white void said otherwise.

An eerie prickling on the back of her neck told her that she was not alone. She turned quickly, strange dress elegantly twirling about her ankles, but as far as she could see was white. Creasing her brow, she cast her suspicious eyes to the side – and they fell upon something unexplainable.

An orb of gently glowing light hovered with her in the white void, stationary and silent. Its weak presence pulsed like a quiet heartbeat, seeming to radiate a pleasant cool that dissipated any scepticism in Aurora’s mind. She couldn’t explain its presence, or how it appeared amid the emptiness, but could sense that it wasn’t a threat.

“Is anyone there?” she called, shifting her eyes away from the odd light with difficulty.

“Of course,” was the sweet reply. Aurora jumped, staring around in surprise for the source of the strange voice. She saw nothing but white and so many azure petals, however, and slowly rotated on her heel to return her wary gaze to the glowing sphere. “Toqqe, Aurora.”

Choosing to ignore the unfamiliar word in place of more important matters, she furrowed her brow and narrowed her eyes. “How do you know my name?” she asked, staring at the orb. Somehow, she knew it was the speaker – despite its lack of mouth or body.

“Oh, I know a thing or two,” it said, soft honey-tones quickly dropping to disgruntlement as it continued. “I’ve been looking for you for a long time, squirt. Could you try and at least be a little happier now that I’ve finally found you?”

Aurora stared flatly at it for a second. Through her complete loss of understanding, the snappy sarcasm in its voice was something she recognised after spending so many years with Alex.

“I think I missed your introduction,” she sniffed, placing her hands on her hips.  “Who…what are you?”

“Ah, of course…” replied the voice, contemplative all of a sudden. “Forgive me. My name is Thia; and I am the occhi of water. Until now, I’ve been staying with Chioni – but now that I’ve finally found you, there’s no need for that anymore.”

Occhi? Chioni? Aurora opened her mouth, but didn’t get a chance to inquire before the orb began to glow brightly and swell. She took a shaky step back, watching it unfurl into a graceful arc of water. It took the shape of a seahorse, one with elaborate spines and beady eyes, and she realised that it was smiling at the awed shock on her face.

The seahorse suddenly reverted to liquid form – gushing toward Aurora in a glistening stream. Unable to step back, she found herself welcoming the stream; letting it flow in a steady spiral around her like a surreal river. A strange tide of warmth welled inside her chest, in her heart; an unexplainable feeling of joy. She could see shapes in the swirling water; images of a world she didn’t know layered with her reflection. She saw her reflection, herself, grinning and garbed in the unfamiliar blue dress; donning glorious, translucent, gossamer wings.

Aurora snapped awake, sprawled on her back amid a tangled mess of blankets in Sam’s living room.

For a moment, she could do nothing but stare at the ceiling with her eyes open wide. Her heart was pounding as though she had recently watched a horror or survived a marathon. The white space…Thia… that was a dream? It had felt so real…and the warmth in her chest… it was still there.

Somewhere beneath the blankets to her right, Katelyn gave a groan. The sound snapped Aurora to her senses and she lunged into a sitting position, watching with quick breaths as her friend’s auburn head forced its way out from beneath the covers.

“Aw, man…” came Alex’s thick voice, from amid the large cocoon of sheets beneath the window. Sam rubbed her eyes next to where she lay, blinking forcefully as though she too had only recently awoken. “Where d’you keep the heartburn medicine? My chest’s on fire…”

Jay raised her torso slightly off the floor, peering at the others though a combination of faint green makeup-stains and the tangled mess that was her hair. “What did you guys feed me?” she moaned, before tugging her blanket over her head. “I had the craziest dream…”

Ignoring Kaya’s still-sleeping form strewn across the sofa, Katelyn sat up in mild interest and began to untangle her own knotted curtain of hair with bare fingers. “I’ll bet I can beat it,” she teased lazily, as Alex staggered upright. Still hugging the blanket around herself, the blonde carefully stepped between the others in a sluggish beeline for the doorway.

“Oh no,” Aurora grinned tiredly, stretching. “I can own the pair of you. I was standing in a white space in a funny dress, and then a ball of light appeared and started talking to me. How’s that for weird?”

When she stopped talking, Aurora realised that the others (minus Kaya) were all staring at her. Even Alex, on her trek to the kitchen in search of painkillers, had paused in the act of opening the door.

“What did you just say?” breathed Alex.

Aurora stared stupidly at Katelyn, who had seized a tube of liquid eyeliner from the carpet beside her and was drawing swiftly on the palm of her hand.

“Were there flower petals falling from above?” asked Sam, tone quiet and incredulous. Jay stared at her in surprise, as Aurora gave a single nod of confirmation.

Katelyn thrust out her hand, almost catching her friend’s nose in the process. “Did it look like this, but bright green like emeralds?” she demanded. Scribbled blotchily onto her palm was the basic outline of a person, robed in a slim and sleeveless dress that flared slightly at the bottom. The model’s arms were elaborately wrapped in bandages or cords – it was impossible to tell which from her drawing – but the mottled torso lacked legs, as the dress seemed to stop at the knee.

“No, and no,” said Aurora, shaking her head.

“Silver?” asked Alex, stepping back toward the group with a look of disbelieving curiosity on her face.

Aurora shook her head again. “No, it was blue,” she replied, before wrinkling her nose in distaste. “And frilly.”

Jay and Sam glanced at each other once more. “My dress was red,” mumbled the latter, her voice still only just audible. “The edges of the hem and sleeves were tattered, flowing like fire.”

While the others were talking, Jay had drawn her knees up against her chest and listened intently. She stayed silent for a moment as they exchanged puzzled glances, thinking carefully about her own dream.

“The orb of light…” she began, hugging her legs as she became the centre of attention. Her deep eyes were troubled, unfocused as though she could see something the others could not. “When it spoke to me, it changed shape. It turned into a dragonfly…pure white, with eyes like cherry blossoms. It called itself the occhi of creation.”

“The light in my dream turned into a little seahorse,” Aurora added, becoming more and more engaged in the conversation. “It called itself Thia – the occhi of water. I don’t know what that means, but…”

“Mine introduced itself as Brin, the occhi of air,” Alex muttered, sitting carefully on the edge of the couch so as not to disturb Kaya. It was a bird…a beautiful silver bird. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Katelyn was drawing on herself again, using her wrist this time as the palm of her non-drawing hand had already been used. “The one I saw transformed into a big butterfly,” she replied, scribbling what looked like a swallowtail onto her skin in eyeliner. “She said her name was Eiril or something…of earth.”

The four turned almost instinctively to face Sam, who took a deep and resigned breath. “Tain,” she sighed, shrugging as though as a loss of understanding. “A salamander…calling itself the ‘occhi’ of fire.”

Kaya gave a small snuffle on the sofa, silencing the girls’ bemused discussion at once. Alex slid silently off the couch, leaving the sleeper be, Aurora dragging one of the bowls of popcorn toward the centre of the group as the five girls huddled together on the carpet.

They resumed the conversation in hushed tones. Jay began first by elaborating how the dragonfly she had seen gave her its wings. She described how it flew towards her, absorbing into her chest, causing four limbs of gossamer to unfurl impossibly from her back.

Aurora then described the wings she had seen with her reflection, translucent and finlike. Sam and Alex both claimed to have borne wings of a bird – Alex’s made of feathers, and Sam’s formed from flames. Finally, Katelyn continued the scribbles even further up her arm in describing her own extra limbs; she drew the wings of a butterfly, both angular yet elegant.

Having heard enough, Alex declared that she was going back to sleep. As she stepped over the others and resumed her space beneath the window, Sam glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece and voiced that the blonde had the right idea. The girls then said their goodnights for the second time of the evening, and quietly settled back beneath the sheets.

 The impossible reality of five individuals sharing variants of the same reverie had still yet to sink in, most likely due to the hour. The only light in the room came from the wan streetlamp outside, casting odd shadows across the group and their twisted blankets. But even after watching the others nod off again, one by one, Jay found that she was unable to follow when she closed her eyes. Her head was too filled with the sight of the white dragonfly; an image that she simply could not shake from her mind.

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