Dream Love

A contest piece for Romantacy, with the author's own spin on it.

Dream Love

By Elijah Tate

A traveler experiences a night wrapped in emotion, environment, and atmosphere — a setting where truth and fantasy blur without warning.

A mythic night not soon forgotten, marked by lingering memories that speak louder than words and refuse to fade.

Have you ever had a moment where you didn't know if it was real or not?

The kind of moment that feels like it slipped between worlds — too vivid to dismiss, too impossible to fully believe. A moment that clings to you, not because of what happened, but because of how it made you feel.

Well… I'll share mine.

I had just turned twenty-one, and my friends insisted we go out to the shoreline. Not for fireworks — those belonged to ordinary summers — but for something far older, far rarer.

The Night of Phoenix Flight.

A legend. A rumor. A story told by people who claimed their ancestors once saw a creature of fire streak across the sky a thousand years ago, granting a single wish to the one whose heart was brave enough to ask.

No one truly believed it. But everyone hoped. Even if they didn't say it.

Music drifted from the beachside bar, soft and warm. People danced, laughed, and drank — not to celebrate, but to distract themselves from the anticipation humming beneath the night air.

The breeze carried the scent of saltwater, citrus from the bar, and something else… something faintly smoky, like a memory of fire.

That's when everything shifted.

That's when our eyes met.

Someone bumped into a server, and a tray clattered to the ground. In the confusion, he brushed my arm with his fingers.

My heart raced. It felt like the first spark of the phoenix igniting somewhere far above us.

I looked up — and there he stood.

Confident, but not arrogant. Warm, natural and unrehearsed. He carried himself like someone who belonged to the moment in a way the rest of us didn't.

The air around us shifted. Not visibly — just enough for my body to feel lighter, as if gravity loosened its grip for a breath.

Not floating. Not flying. Just… weightless.

As if the world paused to see what would happen next.

His presence felt like fire and memory and destiny all at once. My cheeks warmed, my pulse quickened, and the soft glow of lanterns brushed our skin like a blessing.

We didn't dance. We drifted — not upward, but inward, into a connection that felt older than the legend itself. Eternal even.

It wasn't just a physical connection, it was a soul level connection that I felt. My skin tingled with the sense of electricity. I shuddered as he pulled away from me. The music returned to the upbeat rhythm, but it was in that brief moment before he pulled away that our hearts synced in rhythm.

We walked back to the bar and ate our food that just came out.

He had ordered the steak that came with steamed broccoli and baked potato.

I had ordered the chicken with asparagus, both of the meals came with buttered garlic bread.

The light felt soft, more inviting. His charm was natural, unforced as he talked to the waiter and the bartender. The moment felt perfect.

The chicken was perfectly seasoned, tender, juicy and all I could think about was the way he held me close when we danced. How my body reacted with every glance and touch. Even his words sounded warm and caring. It didn't matter what he said or did, I was entranced with a perfect stranger.

I leaned in when he would speak to me. I brushed his arm to stay connected to the feeling that he triggered in me. Everything felt lighter than the feathers that were used as ornaments around us and the bar.

Everyone else faded away. My focus was on him and his eyes on me.

His laughter, like the rest of him, was warm and authentic. His movements were precise and direct. His words were spoken with intelligence, authority but kindness, and with control. Nothing was wasted.

My thoughts even went into the realm of wanting to be with him. Not for a moment or a night but as long as I could. I was feeling seen, heard, and understood in a way that I have never felt before or since.

The sky turned hued with the sunset. The air carried a scent of flame and fire but no smoke with it.

Tension and anticipation filled the air around us. The crowd fell quiet.

Not all at once — more like a ripple, a hush that moved through the shoreline as if the ocean itself had paused to listen. The warmth in the air deepened, brushing against my skin like a whisper of something ancient waking up and it was no different for all of us that waited.

He looked toward the horizon, and without thinking, I followed his gaze.

The last light of the sun dimmed… and for a heartbeat, the world held still.

Then the sky grew with intensity and light— not with daylight, but with something else. Something alive. A streak of gold, faint at first, then growing, pulsing, burning across the heavens like a tear in the fabric of night.

A collective breath rose from the crowd. The streaking light gave the illusion of the stars falling. It was beautiful.

But all I could feel was him beside me.

The warmth of his presence. The echo of our weightless moment. The impossible certainty that whatever was happening in the sky was tied to the connection between us.

The phoenix was preparing his appearance.

And somehow… I knew it wasn't coming for the crowd.

He was arriving for us. For me.

The golden streak widened, brightened, then split into feathers of light that drifted across the sky like embers caught in a wind only the heavens could feel. The air vibrated — not loud, not frightening, just enough to make my bones hum with a warmth that wasn't entirely my own. Air held its breath and the world fell silent, for all but a single moment.

People gasped. Some cried. Others fell to their knees.

But I couldn't look away from him.

His eyes reflected the fire in the sky, and for a moment, I wondered if he had been waiting for this night his entire life — the same way I suddenly felt I had been waiting for him.

The light intensified, fiery colors, gathering into a single point before bursting outward in a wave of heat that washed over the shoreline. My breath caught. My skin tingled. The world blurred at the edges, as if the night itself were being rewritten. A mirage being witnessed in the desert. The moment was incomparable to anything we had experienced before and will long afterwards.

Appearing out of that same airy illusion, I saw him.

Wings of flame. A body forged of light. A creature older than memory, rising from the horizon with a cry that felt like it echoed inside my chest. A reverberating screech that couldn't be heard. It had to be witnessed through the spirit. Felt on a level that made the whole moment pause in its splendor.

The phoenix.

Its fire didn't burn. It warmed. It beckoned.

And when its gaze swept across the crowd, it didn't linger on the hundreds of faces turned upward in awe.

It found me.

The weightlessness returned — stronger this time, lifting the edges of my consciousness, pulling me toward something I couldn't name. The world dimmed, not into darkness, but into a soft, golden haze.

I felt his hand brush mine.

And then—

Everything dissolved.

When the phoenix vanished into the horizon, it felt as though he carried the last of the world's energy with him. The air softened, the heat faded into something gentle, and the shoreline exhaled as if waking from a shared dream.

We sank onto the sand without speaking, wrapped in the lingering warmth he left behind — a final gift for those who had witnessed his majesty. It clung to my skin like a blessing, soft and unreal, as if the night itself wanted to cradle us.

The world around us blurred at the edges, colors melting into one another, the ocean's rhythm slowing until it felt like it was breathing with us.

In that strange, impossible stillness, I closed my eyes.

A soft smile touched my lips as I rested my head against his chest, listening to the steady rise and fall of his breath. Our hearts synced in rhythm. His warmth, the weight of his arm around me, the hush of the waves — it all folded around me like a promise I didn't dare name.

It was perfect.

Too perfect.

The kind of perfection that only exists in dreams.

The warmth blanketing us didn't fade. It thickened — settling over my skin like a second heartbeat, slow and steady, coaxing my body into a softness I couldn't resist. The sand beneath us felt impossibly smooth, the kind of softness that didn't belong to any real shoreline I'd ever known.

His breathing lulled me, steady and warm beneath my cheek. Each rise and fall pulled me deeper into a calm I hadn't felt in years — maybe ever. The world around us dimmed into a gentle glow, as if the phoenix's fire still lingered in the air, refusing to let the night return to normal. I felt his lips press against my head. The waves no longer crashed. They whispered.

The breeze no longer moved. It hovered, warm and unmoving, like the world was afraid to disturb us.

Even the stars seemed closer, brighter, as if they had drifted down to watch over us.

My body grew heavier and lighter all at once — grounded by his warmth, lifted by the strange, golden haze that wrapped around us. My thoughts blurred at the edges, softening into something warm and weightless.

I felt his arm tighten around me, just slightly, just enough to make my heart ache with a tenderness I didn't know how to hold.

I let myself sink into it. Into him. Into the moment that felt like it had been waiting for me long before I ever arrived.

The world exhaled.

And I drifted.

Not into sleep — but into something deeper. Something that felt like the space between dreaming and remembering, where nothing hurts and everything is possible.

A place where love didn't feel out of reach.

A place where I wasn't alone.

The warmth holding us began to thin, almost imperceptibly at first — like a blanket losing its weight, thread by glowing thread. His breathing softened beneath my cheek, growing distant, as if the space between us stretched without either of us moving.

The golden haze flickered.

Once. Then again.

The whispering waves fell silent. The stars blurred into streaks of light. Even the air seemed unsure whether to stay or slip away. I tried to hold onto him, onto the moment, but my fingers felt numb, my body too light, as if I were being lifted out of myself.

His warmth faded last.

I reached for it.

For him.

For anything that would anchor me to the place where I wasn't alone.

But the dream let go.

And I fell.

Cold air hit me first.

Then the hum of engines. Then the metallic scent of recycled oxygen. Then the emptiness.

I opened my eyes to the dim glow of the ship's cabin, the thin blanket tangled around my legs, the hollow quiet pressing against my ribs. My hand was still reaching out, fingers curled toward a warmth that wasn't there.

He wasn't there.

The beach. The stars. The phoenix. Him.

All of it dissolved into the same truth I'd been running from.

It was only a dream.

And the worst part wasn't losing him.

It was realizing how much I wanted — needed — it to be real. How deeply I feared it never could be. How much I feared I would always wake up… alone.