Geraldo opened his eyes and there was no sky.

Only a bluish void, pulsing like veins under thin skin. The air smelled of hot plastic and burnt sugar—the scent of a new toy left too long in the sun. There was no solid ground; just a translucent membrane that gave slightly with every step, like walking on living jelly.

He knew he was inside someone.

It wasn’t his first time entering a mind—he’d stumbled into others’ lucid dreams by accident, on bad trips, in endless nights. But never for this long. Never invited without knowing.

The maroon tank top he wore in the real world still felt stuck to his skin, a ghost sensation. His beat-up sneakers (right lace always loose) had vanished in the crossing.

Ahead, sitting cross-legged, a girl around ten years old clutched a broken tablet. The cracked screen leaked wisps of light that rose like smoke. Her fingers were smeared with neon blue and pink. She didn’t look at him. She looked through him, as if Geraldo were just another poorly rendered blur.

“Hey…” he tried, voice low, almost gentle. “Where am I?”

The girl frowned. The entire horizon shuddered, like someone slapping water. She hugged the tablet to her chest. The air grew heavier.

Geraldo smiled sideways. He already knew her name before she said it.

Lira.

He also knew this whole place—the streets that only appeared when stepped on, the crooked trees because she couldn’t quite remember real ones, the sun that changed color with her mood—was hers. All of it was Lira daydreaming wide awake, her mind plugged in at full power, processing everything without ever shutting off.

He took a step. The ground crunched like bubble wrap.

“I got lost,” he said, feigning confusion. “Do you know the way home?”

Lira finally looked. Her eyes were big, brown, too tired for a child. Purple shadows like permanent ink.

“There’s no home,” she answered, voice thin but firm. “This is everything.”

Geraldo sat slowly, at a safe distance.

“Everything what?”

“Everything I think becomes real. Everything I forget disappears. Everything I fear turns into a monster. Everything I like stays forever.”

She said it like reciting rules to a game she was tired of playing.

Geraldo nodded, as if he understood perfectly.

“And you… like playing alone?”

Lira shrugged. The horizon cracked. An entire crooked building sprouted to the left, made of melted Lego.

“There’s no one to play with.”

“Now there’s me.”

She looked at the broken tablet. The screen flickered with an old photo—a bearded man smiling, a woman holding a baby. The image glitched, like bad signal.

“You’ll leave,” she said. “Everyone does.”

Geraldo felt the first real tug in his chest. Not fear. Opportunity.

Because he knew the secret no one here knew yet: if Lira truly woke up, this whole world would collapse. Including anyone inside.

And he had no intention of collapsing.

“I’m not leaving,” he said, voice calm, almost fatherly. “I know how to stay.”

Lira raised an eyebrow.

“How?”

“Teach me the rules. I learn fast.”

She hesitated. The tablet went dark. The light on her fingers dimmed a shade.

“Rule one,” she whispered. “You can’t wake up.”

“Got it.”

“Rule two. You can’t lie.”

Geraldo smiled wider.

“I never lie. I just simplify.”

Lira stared at him for a long time. The whole world seemed to hold its breath.

Then she held out her light-stained hand.

“Okay. You can stay.”

Geraldo took it. It was warm. Pulsing. Infinite.

And in that exact second, the horizon stopped trembling.

The world had a new owner. Only Lira didn’t know it yet.