A Dream That Saved Us
I dreamt in grey that night.
The air was thick with fog, the kind that presses on your chest and sticks to your skin, like memory that won’t let go. I walked through a cemetery I didn’t recognize, but somehow, my feet knew the way. The gravel crunched underfoot with every step. Somewhere, the wind chimes chimed, their sound slightly offbeat, like they were playing a song from a forgotten past.
My heart was pounding, beating so loudly I thought it might drown out everything else.
And then, I saw him—Wyatt, my husband.
He stood next to a grave, the name too blurry for me to read, his hands buried deep in his coat pockets. He wasn’t looking around, but his eyes locked on mine. He didn’t need to say anything. He just raised one hand slowly, a slow wave that seemed to come from a place far beyond us.
“Wyatt?” I called out, stepping closer. “What are you doing here?”
But before he could answer…
The ringing started.
I jerked awake, my heart leaping out of my chest, eyes wide in the dark. Wyatt wasn’t beside me. His side of the bed was still cold, still untouched. I reached for my phone, panic clawing at my chest, my limbs heavy, like sleep hadn’t fully left me yet.
An unknown number.
“Hello?” I croaked, my voice hoarse and foreign.
A woman’s voice on the other end, cold and impersonal.
“Good evening, ma’am. I’m sorry to inform you, but your husband…”
The words hung in the air, thick and heavy, like smoke I couldn’t breathe through. My mouth went dry.
“What? What do you mean? Wyatt’s… he should be home by now. He worked the late shift! He was supposed to be back by now!” I choked out, desperate to make sense of this.
“I’m terribly sorry,” she said, her tone shifting for a brief moment before she added, “I believe I’ve dialed the wrong number. Please forgive me.”
She hung up before I could say another word.
The silence in the room was suffocating. My heart thudded painfully in my chest. I glanced at the clock—4:17 A.M. Wyatt’s shift had ended over an hour ago. No call. No text. I swung my legs out of bed, the cold floor biting at my feet as I stumbled to the kitchen. I needed something—water, anything to steady my hands.
But what I saw through the window made my blood run cold.
Wyatt… he was floating, face down in our backyard pool.
My breath hitched in my throat. I couldn’t move at first. I couldn’t breathe. Then panic surged through me, and I bolted out the door, the cold air slapping against my bare skin. My feet pounded against the grass, bare and raw.
I reached the pool. Wyatt was there. Silent. Still. Wrong.
“No, no, no! Wyatt!” I screamed, slipping as I knelt beside him, my hands shaking so violently I almost dropped my phone. I fumbled to call 911, my fingers numb and slick with water.
“Emergency services, what’s your emergency?” came the calm voice on the other end.
“My husband… he’s not breathing! He’s in the pool! Please! I need an ambulance!” I sobbed, desperate. My hands trembled as I set the phone on speaker and plunged into the freezing water, pulling his heavy body toward the edge.
He was cold. Too cold. Like death had already begun to claim him.
I dragged him onto the concrete, his body hitting the ground with a sickening thud. His skin was icy, lips blue, his chest still. I pressed my ear to his chest, but there was nothing—no heartbeat, no breath.
“No! Wyatt! Please! You can’t leave me!” I screamed, my voice breaking.
I started CPR, my palms slipping on his wet skin as I counted out the compressions. “One, two, three, four…” My heart raced with every press. “Come back to me! Wyatt, please!”
Nothing. I bent down to give him mouth-to-mouth, pushing all my fear and love into each breath. Again. Again.
And then…
A gasp. Wet and broken and beautiful.
Wyatt coughed, water spilling from his mouth, his body jerking with life as he struggled to breathe again.
I collapsed next to him, sobbing, my forehead pressed against his chest. The sound of sirens grew closer, the red and blue lights cutting through the darkness.
He was alive.
At the hospital, I sat in the sterile waiting room, my arms wrapped tightly around myself. My sweater clung to me, damp with sweat and tears, the cold tile floors seeping into my bones. The silence was suffocating. The muted whispers behind the curtains, the hum of vending machines that no one used—it all felt like it was happening in another world.
Time stretched on, endless and heavy, until a doctor finally appeared. She was tired, her scrubs wrinkled, eyes rimmed with exhaustion. But there was kindness in them, kindness that cut through the fog of fear and confusion that surrounded me.
“He’s stable, June,” she said softly. “You saved his life.”
I exhaled, but it came out as a shudder, as if I couldn’t quite believe it.
“But,” she continued, “we discovered something else. Your husband has a serious heart condition. It’s likely gone undetected for years.”
I nodded, but her words didn’t fully settle. They hung in the air, unresolved.
“He’s lucky you acted when you did,” she added.
Lucky. Lucky…
I stood, my legs moving on their own, drifting toward the reception desk, the sound of my own voice barely registering as I asked for water.
The receptionist turned to fetch it.
And then I froze.
Her voice was unmistakable. That same cold, impersonal tone.
“You called me earlier,” I said, the words thick in my mouth. “About my husband…”
She looked at me, her face blank. “I didn’t make any calls, ma’am. I’ve been here all night. I just finished a twelve-hour shift. Your husband was my last patient before I head home.”
My heart pounded in my chest. That voice. It was the same voice, but now it was warmer, softer. Real.
What was happening? Had I imagined the call? Had I dreamed it? Or… had something else been at play?
It wasn’t fear I felt then. It was awe.
Something had come to me in the dark. It hadn’t come to take. It had come to save.
I stood by Wyatt’s bed later, watching his chest rise and fall, steady now, hooked up to quiet monitors. I kissed his forehead, whispering that I’d be back soon, and slipped out into the dimly lit hospital halls.
I wandered, aimless, until I found the cafeteria. It was half-closed, but I bought a lukewarm coffee and a muffin, the taste of bitter coffee offering a small comfort. It wasn’t about the food—it was about grounding myself in something real.
But then the quiet pulled me down another hallway, the sign reading “Psychiatry & Counselling.”
I knocked on the door of the office with a light still on. A middle-aged woman with soft curls and kind eyes looked up.
“Can I help you?” she asked, her voice gentle.
“I don’t know,” I whispered. “I think I need someone to tell me I’m not crazy.”
She ushered me in without hesitation.
I told her everything—the dream, the call, Wyatt in the pool, the voice at the desk. My words cracked as I spoke, but she never interrupted, just listened.
When I finished, she didn’t laugh. She didn’t blink.
“June,” she said slowly. “What happened to you was terrifying and beautiful. I can’t say it was a guardian angel, or just intuition whispering to you through a dream. But maybe it doesn’t matter.”
“But how would I know?” I swallowed hard, my voice small. “How did I know before anything happened?”
“Because love does that, June,” she said, her voice calm. “Sometimes your mind picks up on things your body hasn’t caught yet. Your subconscious knew. And maybe… something else did too.”
Tears slipped down my cheeks as I stared at her.
“You were never alone,” she added softly.
For the first time, I let myself believe it.
I thanked her with a nod, my shoulders easing for the first time in hours. Maybe I’d never understand what happened. But I didn’t need to.
Wyatt was alive. I was still standing.
I wandered the hospital, my coffee now cold in my hand, my mind heavy. I passed the children’s ward, the nurses’ station, the buzzing vending machine. The world felt sharp, like it hadn’t quite forgiven me for almost losing everything.
When I reached Wyatt’s room, I stopped. His heart monitor beeped in a steady rhythm. His chest rose, slow but sure.
And then his eyes opened. Just a crack, but enough to make my breath catch.
“June,” he whispered, voice ragged, barely a thread.
“I’m here,” I said, my voice breaking as I rushed to his side. I took his hand, squeezing it tight.
“You pulled me out?” he asked, his eyes filled with confusion.
I nodded, tears spilling over.
“I remember…” he whispered, swallowing hard. “I was standing somewhere. It was cold, and… I felt like something was calling me. Like I had to go.”
His voice was distant. But when he looked at me, I knew he wasn’t talking about the hospital room.
“I turned around…” he continued. “And I saw you. Not really, but a shadow of you. You were crying. And I couldn’t leave you.”
My heart shattered. I held his hand tighter, terrified that if I let go, he might slip away again.
Later, when they sedated him to rest, I found a bathroom and locked the door behind me. I collapsed in front of the mirror, my breath ragged.
I didn’t recognize myself. I didn’t want to.
I let the tears come. They poured from me, raw and broken. I cried for him, for the version of him that hadn’t made it. For the woman I almost became. For the breath I thought I might never get back.
He almost died. And I almost didn’t make it out of that dream.
But when the sobs slowed, something else stayed with me.
A memory of Wyatt, months ago, joking while I stirred dinner.
“If I ever die before you,” he’d said with a grin, “you better not meet anyone else. I’ll haunt you for sure.”
“You? A ghost?” I laughed.
“I’d be the most annoying one. Flickering lights, cold toes, the works.”
At the time, I rolled my eyes, but now…
Maybe that’s what happened. Maybe love really is strong enough to scream across worlds.
Wyatt is here now. Alive. Safe. And his hand is still curled in mine, like nothing else in the world matters.
And maybe, just maybe, nothing else does.
