‘Stop dreaming!’
You had hurled those words at me. Loud and shattering, totally unexpected. It brought redness to my cheeks and our eyes met for the first time.

It’s always the quiet ones, huh?
I don’t think I could ever forget that single moment, when I was hardly a child, and you were hardly a teen – and a short one, too.

‘Stop dreammMMMinggGGGG!!’
A cheeky half grin, half smile, half look of mischief – well, I never was good at math.
It was your rather brutal war cry of challenge attempt that I had gladly welcomed with open arms. We ran along outside, a playful chase on a breezy summer day.
We were young and stupid.

I don’t think much of the moment, but I remembered laughing so hard that my sides hurt.

‘Stop dreaming.’
You had said, later on.

Solemn and somewhat sad, your short words were painful but true, as we both stumbled upon the limits of reality and fiction.
How hard we worked, how much we tried, and… how they all never really seem to matter. There was a bitterness of silent defeat and hot, unfallen tears.

I don’t think I realised at that time, what those words meant when you said them.

‘Stop dreaming…’
These words, caught in my throat, slurred endlessly.

They dragged out just like the way they dragged out your lifeless body.

I didn’t think that there could be sadness like this – so heart-breaking and overwhelming, yet so blatantly empty.