She was dreaming one night. Well, she'd have to be dreaming. I can't interact with people any other way anymore. She wasn't just dreaming though. She was crying. Not I physically hurt, or my life , or anything like that. It wasn't physical crying at all. You know what I said about her beautiful soul? Her soul was what was crying, and she didn't even know it.

  I don't remember what I was upset over that day. I just remember being tired and only wanting to go to sleep as soon as possible, but the house needed to be cleaned, dinner made, and the laundry done first. Plus, I had a mountain of math homework I needed to get started on. It was Friday so I had the weekend, but it would take me that long to struggle through a quarter of it. Anyway, it was well past midnight when I finally finished my chores and headed to my room to collapse. I don't generally dream, or if I do I don't remember it afterwards. This night was different. I was in a dark woods, and it was raining, and I stepped in a hole and tripped. I hadn't been running just walking, but I couldn't see well in the rain and the dark. I put my hands out to catch myself, but it wasn't necessary. Someone grabbed my sweater and kept me on my feet.

  You're probably thinking right now, why her? What made her so special? By lots of other people's standards her life isn't bad at all. Okay, so her mom is an alcoholic and her dad is gone, she's too busy with housework and her struggles with schoolwork to know if she was too busy or too shy to make friends, but she's fed, clothed, housed, has a mother and goes to school, has never been abused or even touched really. Maybe that's what drew me to her, the fact that she's gone almost completely unnoticed, hardly touched by the world, either truly good or truly bad. She could almost have been a blank slate. Except, humans aren't meant to be untouched and unnoticed. That's how they shrivel up and fade away. Just ask all the abandoned, neglected, abused people in the world who never met a rescuer or managed to rescue themselves.

  When I turned in my dream to thank whoever caught me, I was stunned. No, he wasn't the most gorgeous creature I'd ever seen, although the pixie-like man was cute enough, but there was something about his eyes I just found mesmerizing. He made sure I was steady on my feet, then bowed and of all things took my hand and softly kissed the back of it, like I was a princess or something. "I'm well, I'm the Sandman, but my given name is Ryeowook. Who might you be?" These were the first things he said to me.