His voice startled her from her thoughts.

â€?But this is all just a dream to you. You can change it to suit your will, but you don’t. Why? Because you like the adventure, you like the storyline, and you want to know how it will turn out. It’s all an illusion, though. None of what goes on here matters; it’s all just part of a dream, a thing of no consequence. It will have no effect on reality. But that’s the thing, isn’t it? Reality is just an illusion. For you, here, now… this is reality. It’s every bit as real as your waking life, and so it matters just as much, if not more.“

His footsteps resonated in the room around her. The echo they made seemed to match the dusty smell of the rough stone walls. The smell, the echo, the heavy must of the air… they all seemed so real. And they were real. They had to be real. They had always been real.

“I… I really don’t understand” she muttered, looking up at him sheepishly.

“Of course you don’t. You don’t want to, and unless you want to, you won’t.”