When morning came, the images were there — vivid, strange, undeniably mine — yet I had no memory of creating them. The process, the choices, the midnight moments of awe — gone. All that remained was the evidence of her visit, and the quiet certainty that I had once touched something beautiful I could no longer recall.

The Somnus Thief never speaks. She moves like smoke between thoughts, collecting what must be forgotten so the rest might survive. In her silence, I understood: she wasn’t my enemy, only my shadow. She takes so that I can keep creating — an endless trade between memory and manifestation.

Even now, when the night deepens and my mind begins to blur, I feel her watching. I know she’s waiting for that moment when inspiration tilts toward exhaustion. And still, I hold on — not to the dreams themselves, but to the faint echo of their making.

I felt her before I saw her — a shimmer in the edges of wakefulness, a soft drag across the corners of my mind where ideas had barely begun to breathe. The air was heavy, the clocks quiet. Even the other Muses seemed to retreat when she arrived.

She came not to guide, but to take. At first, I thought she was stealing my dreams — the fragile worlds I built when sleep refused to claim me. But I fought her. I clutched the fragments as tightly as I could — the colors, the forms, the whispers that would become images. And somehow, I kept them.

Only later did I realize what she had taken instead.