But all dreams, even the most beautiful ones, must end. I felt the weakness creeping into my limbs, my breaths becoming slower. I looked at my illusory family, whom I had loved with all my empty soul, and I smiled.
"Leave him with me for a few moments," I said in a low voice. "I want to talk to my old friend." They left the room in silence, leaving behind a real sadness for an illusory man. Only I and 404 were left in the room, he was standing in the same corner he had stood in for decades, silent, steady, unchanging.
"You know, 404..." I said, looking at him. "I've lived a good life. A thousand times better than I deserved." "I saw the world, I loved, and I was loved... but I failed in one mission."
I paused to catch my breath. "My mission with you. I wanted to make you feel... but how can a man who was born empty fill the emptiness of others?" "This is my only regret. That at the end of this long journey, I leave you as I found you. A silent, loyal rock. I dragged you with me into my dream, but I couldn't give you a dream of your own."
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I slowly raised my hand and pointed to my failing heart. "But... I have one last chance to fix that. One wish... and that's all I need." I closed my eyes and felt the last thread of life slipping away from me.
And at that very moment, in the dark real world, under the light of the blue moon in the dead palace garden, the body of Anansi finally fell under the real blade of 404. The walls of the illusory prison shattered. My soul did not fade; it was set free.
...The return was violent. It was not an awakening; it was a tearing. My consciousness was pulled from a frail, mortal body and thrown forcefully into a cold, hard chassis. Data flooded my system like a deluge, eighty years of memories of laughter, tears, and warmth.
The memory of my wife's touch was replaced by data on the hardness of my stone armor. The memory of the sound of my grandchildren's laughter was replaced by the silent hum of my internal systems. The memory of the feeling of my heart beating was replaced by the reality of not having a heart at all.
I opened my optical sensors. I was standing in the dead palace garden. The sky was just a dark cavern ceiling. Before me, two corpses lay on the ground. The broken body of Dio, and the young body of Hong Min, from which the soul of the parasite Anansi had just departed. I was back. But I was no longer 404. He had given me a name and a purpose on his long journey. I am Dream.
In that moment, a transparent window of blue light appeared before me in my field of vision, bearing words that were not of my own making, but of an external power.
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