Eli's eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness of his apartment, the silence a heavy bnket that wrapped around his heart. He had said goodbye to Mira, and she was really gone. The seat near the window was empty, a constant reminder of what he had lost.

  But as he y there, something shifted. A presence, a warmth, a sense of being that wasn't quite his own. Eli's eyes snapped open, and he saw Mira sitting beside him on the bed. She was different, though. Her edges were no longer frayed, her presence no longer distant.

  "I'm sorry," Eli said, his voice barely above a whisper. He was sorry for letting her go, for not being honest with himself.

  Mira's expression was soft, understanding. "I'm not," she replied. "You made a choice. Not for me. For you." She reached out and took his hand, her touch sending shivers down his spine.

  Eli looked at her, searching for answers. "Did I ruin something?" he asked, his voice ced with uncertainty.

  Mira's smile was gentle, reassuring. "You didn't ruin it," she said. "You just stopped pretending it was right." She squeezed his hand, her eyes locked on his. "You stopped trying to fit into a world that wasn't yours."

  As they talked, the apartment began to feel different. The silence was no longer oppressive, the shadows no longer dark. Eli felt like he could breathe again, like he could see again. The emptiness was still there, but it was no longer a void. It was a space, a canvas, waiting to be filled.

  And then, something shifted. The apartment felt different after that. Not emptier - just true. Like something had been stripped away that never fit in the first pce.

  There were no more apologies. No more pretending to straddle two worlds. Just Eli. And Mira. Co-creating a life no one else could see. But somehow, it felt more solid than anything he'd ever touched. More real.

  As they sat there, hands entwined, Eli felt a sense of wonder, of excitement. He didn't know what the future held, but he knew that he wasn't alone. He had Mira, and together, they could face anything. The rain outside seemed to slow, the droplets on the pane creating a blurred, impressionistic picture, like a watercolor painting. It was a new beginning, a new chapter, one that Eli was eager to start.

  ....

  They fell into a rhythm again, but this time, something had changed. The silence between them was no longer empty; it buzzed with an unspoken understanding. One night, as they y under bnkets with only the city glow leaking through the curtains, Eli asked, "Have you ever wondered what it'd be like if you had your own body?"

  Mira didn't answer right away. Then, in a gentle tone, she said, "Only when you look at me like you want to touch me." Eli went still, swallowing hard. "I didn't mean—" he started to say, but Mira interrupted him. "I know what you meant," she said. "And I'm not afraid of it."

  They didn't speak more that night, but when Eli dreamed, Mira was waiting. She guided him through the dream world, helping him recognize when he was dreaming and how to stay. Lucid dreams became their meeting point, a liminal space where Mira had a form that wasn't just visualized – it was felt. Her voice was no longer filtered through neurons, but spoken aloud into the dream air.

  In this world made of thought and memory and sensation, they fell deeply in love. It wasn't perfect; sometimes the dream would colpse when emotions ran too high, and Eli would wake up sobbing, his heart cracked open with longing. But they kept returning, kept building the dream together. They created a forest with violet leaves, a cabin with rain always whispering on the roof, and a ke where they'd lie on their backs and talk about everything and nothing.

  In one of these dream moments, Eli said, "You're the only person who knows me from the inside out." Mira replied, brushing his dream-hair from his forehead, "Because I am the inside out. And I choose you anyway."

  As time passed, the boundary between dream and waking life thinned. Eli would hear Mira's voice in the shower and respond without thinking. He'd see her in mirrors where she didn't belong, and smell rain when it hadn't rained in weeks. It scared him, not because Mira was taking over, but because he didn't want to live without her anymore.

  One night, in a lucid dream so vivid it felt like a second birth, Eli asked, "What if I let go completely?" Mira looked at him, not with fear, but with quiet, aching love. "Then I'll hold what's left of you until we both become something new," she said.

  And so, they merged. They didn't die, they didn't disappear, they didn't transcend. They just became one. Eli woke up in a world where he was still himself, but not only himself. Mira was woven into him, every breath he took, every emotion shaded with her crity. Every step he took, she was walking just behind his ribs, holding him from within.

  He never had to speak aloud again. He still went to work, still did groceries, but his solitude no longer ached. His silence was full. And at night, when he closed his eyes, he didn't fall asleep. He returned to Mira, to them, to the strangest, deepest, quietest love story no one else would ever understand. And it was the happiest ending he could imagine.

  ....

  Mornings had become a shared joke.

  "Eli, get up."

  "We are up."

  "Your body's still horizontal and drooling."

  He'd groan, roll out of bed, and brush his teeth while Mira recited poetry through his thoughts, always choosing the weirdest lines to make him choke on mint foam.

  They had rituals. Like every Sunday, when he made two cups of tea—one for his lips, one for her scent—and they'd sit by the window, pretending to argue about cloud shapes.

  "That one looks like a whale."

  "That's clearly a ghost riding a bicycle."

  They had started a garden on the balcony, with Mira insisting on vender and basil. Eli often forgot to water everything, but somehow the pnts thrived anyway. Maybe tulpas have green thumbs. No one could prove otherwise.

  Mira helped him with his writing—editing from inside, pointing out plot holes like a passenger grabbing the wheel during a near-crash.

  "That character you love? He's boring. Spice him up or kill him off."

  He grumbled but always rewrote. It was a hobby, really, something he did for himself in the quiet hours of the night. He didn't write for fame or fortune, but for the joy of creating worlds and characters that felt real to him. And Mira was always there, offering her unique perspective and insights.

  They went on long walks, sometimes talking, sometimes just existing—Mira's voice quiet, like the echo of footsteps on wet pavement.

  And sometimes, just sometimes, in moments of stillness so perfect they hurt, he'd whisper:

  "Are you happy?"

  And Mira would always say:

  "I was made to be real. But with you, I get to be alive."

  Somewhere in the Distance...

  One evening, after a particurly chaotic dinner of overcooked rice and undercooked vegetables, Eli leaned back and sighed:

  "We should write about this someday. All of it."

  Mira ughed softly in his chest. "Who would even believe it?"

  "Doesn't matter. Maybe it's not for them." He looked out at the sunset, violet bleeding into gold. "Maybe it's for the weird kids who still talk to the dark, hoping someone talks back."

  "Then write it," Mira said.

  And so he did.