Her eyes remained shut as she forced it to come back. Only it was already gone. 

Yeonbin removed the covers over her head, allowing the morning sunlight from outside the window to momentarily wake her more from her interrupted slumber. With annoyance, she turned to her nightstand and shut off the ringing alarm on her phone before sinking back into bed again. A heavy sigh escaped from her lips as she stared at the ceiling.

It happened again for the seventh day in the row. She could tell since the piece of paper under her phone had six written vertical lines along the middle of the sheet, which meant she had dreamt of the same thing every day in the past week. In every single one of them, the same things would appear that she could remember; there were blinding lights, parts of a hospital, and him. The image of him was always hazy whenever she woke up; she could hardly remember much of his features or what he even sounded like. But he was always there, she was sure of it.

She could hardly pinpoint when the dream actually started. It was only just two weeks ago she realized it was recurring. At first, it occurred sparsely until later on it became more frequent up to the point where it was the only thing she dreamt of the past week.

Yeonbin was unsure if it meant anything significant. She read somewhere that recurring dreams meant that there was presence of unresolved conflict or stress yet she hardly experienced any of that recently. All of the conflicts and stressors she had previously encountered were always dealt with within a short period of time. But that didn’t explain the reason why he was there. She never knew him, interacted with him, better yet, saw him before. Why would there be conflict with someone she never knew?

As much as the dream itself was weird and confusing, Yeonbin couldn’t help but notice feeling happier upon waking. She didn’t know why, but it felt nice to wake up in a positive light rather than be indifferent or dull like all of the other times. Though, she was somewhat annoyed since her dream was interrupted by her obnoxious alarm.

Reaching for her phone again, the time on the screen read 7:04 AM. Wondering if she could rest for a few more minutes to see if that dream could come back, she momentarily forced her eyes to close. She waited. Nothing but pitch darkness.

Opening her eyes with frustration, Yeonbin pulled the covers off of her as she set her phone back on the nightstand, She then sat up in bed and slipped her feet into her slippers before dragging her feet into the bathroom. It was a normal routine but for some reason, the day felt different, like something important could happen.

-

The glass doors automatically opened in Yeonbin’s presence as she walked toward them. As she entered the building, the familiar clean aroma of the hospital greeted her. It was early in the morning, not much was happening. There was only a decent amount of people around; healthcare workers busily doing their jobs, nurses walking with patients, and some visitors.

Making her way to her office, she curtly bowed to nearby colleagues with a small “good morning” and “hello.” It was the same routine like every other day, except there were always some new faces. Nonetheless, she still greeted them.

To her right, she could hear the rapid footsteps of Kim Junmyeon, one of the hospital’s physicians in emergency medicine. The man had a neutral expression on his face as he lightly jogged closer to her direction. Seeing her, he broke into a small smile and held his hand up to a wave. 

“Morning, Ms. Min,” he greeted as he continued on his way, most likely to deal with a new case. 

“Morning, Dr. Kim,” Yeonbin greeted back before continuing her way to her office. 

Unlocking the door to her office, Yeonbin entered into the quiet room and closed the door behind her. Walking toward the window by her desk, she adjusted the blinds to illuminate the room with natural lighting. It was nice outside for now as it would rain by the time she would leave work. 

Setting her bag down by her desk, Yeonbin plopped herself down on her seat and reviewed her schedule for the day. Among the typical responsibilities and daily tasks of being part of the administration, there was a meeting for her to attend in a few hours. Almost every week, there was always one.

A knock on the door diverted Yeonbin’s attention away from the computer screen. Knowing what time it was, she smiled knowing the person behind the door and called for her to come in. Seulgi, a gynecologist, excitedly welcomed herself into the room and sat herself down across from her. 

“Morning, Yeonbin,” Seulgi smiled as she set a cup of coffee on her desk while holding her own. 

“How’s your day starting off? You’re in a good mood,” Yeonbin said as she held the cup of coffee in her hand and took a small sip of the hot drink. 

“I’m always in a good mood, silly. When you’re here, all is well,” Seulgi answered before pausing to drink out of her cup. “How about you?”

Yeonbin wished she could say the same thing. She wished it was just that same routine as it always had been. But no, that dream was almost haunting even though her memory of it was foggy in her mind. Since the past week, it was starting to invade her thoughts like a parasite. 

“Well, I would be pretty good if it weren’t for that dream again,” Yeonbin said while slightly rolling her eyes. 

Seulgi sat up in the chair as a look of concern glossed over her face. “It appeared again? Yeonbin, that’s like a whole week you’ve dreamt of that.”

“Yeah,” Yeonbin nodded. It sounded even more ridiculous to hear it be said out loud. “And I have no idea why… “

Seulgi pursed her lips as she fished her phone out of her pocket and typed away before scrolling through something. “It says here that having recurring dreams means that you have unresolved conflict or stressors.”

“I know, but I don’t have any of those.” Yeonbin sank into her chair and rested her elbow on the armrest before placing the side of her head on the palm of her hand. Letting out a frustrated sigh, she then asked, “Is there any other credible reason?”

Seulgi continued scrolling through the search results and shook her head slowly. “Nope, they all say the same thing.” Tapping her foot on the floor, she then asked, “You still see the same guy?”

“I do… and the funny thing is, I don’t even know who he is. I can't even recall what he looks like.”

“Well, it says here that you have some unresolved conflict with that person,” Seulgi read from her phone. “But that doesn’t make sense since you don’t even know him let alone remember what he looks like.” As she continued browsing through her phone, her eyebrows then furrowed.

Noticing her expression, Yeonbin asked, “What is it?”

“It says here that maybe you’re wishing for something to be real. I guess in this case, whatever happened in your dream,” Seulgi answered before showing her phone to Yeonbin.

As her eyes adjusted to focus on the close screen, she skimmed over the block of text. She then scoffed after reading.

“I’m dreaming of the same guy because I want to have him in real life?  Please…” Yeonbin couldn’t help but chuckle. It was almost funny from how ridiculous it sounded. “That’s ridiculous.”

How could she even want to be with someone that she had never seen? 

“Yeah, we shouldn’t use these as an explanation. I don’t even see a single credible source on these websites.” Seulgi then turned off her phone and placed it back in her pocket. “Maybe, you should go see a psychologist if it’s still continuing. There has to be a reason why this is happening to you.”

“Probably. But I’m pretty busy with work right now,” Yeonbin shrugged. “We’ll see how things go.”

-

Thankfully the end of the meeting overlapped toward the beginning of her breaktime. 

The distance between her office from the conference hall was somewhat far but after navigating through the hundreds of corridors within the hospital for a few years, the journey always felt short from building muscle memory.

Yeonbin was approaching near the area of the emergency room which she would always pass by when returning back to her office. There were times she would see patients wheeled into the area, which was always intriguing to see for a few seconds. Other times, nothing would happen much. The place itself wasn’t somewhere she would stick around for long as her presence wasn't essential and was more of an obstacle to dire emergencies. Yet, for some reason, she found herself slowing down and standing by the area. 

It was like some invisible force was holding her back from continuing any further, like there was something in the emergency room that she needed to see. Looking around the area, Yeonbin watched numerous nurses and physicians walking around, doing whatever they needed to do. Her eyes wandered over the area searching for something, and for some reason her hopes died down when every second would pass. 

She was unsure why she was acting and feeling this way. The emergency room barely meant much to her though they were one of the important places in the hospital, but besides that, there was no reason why she would be like this. Perhaps there was something going on that needed her attention that she was unaware of but no one was calling for any outside attention.