Iria hadn't slept well in three years. The Lúa app promised shared dreams with a verified partner. She was matched with someone who had been weaving dreams his entire life.
Lúa App — internal chat, Thursday 4:48 AM
Partner: Iria. I'm your verified partner from the Lúa app. I was matched with you tonight based on REM brainwave compatibility.
Partner: I can only message you here when we're both awake. You just woke up. So did I.
Partner: If you want to block the chat now and never see me again, tap the full moon icon. If you want me to explain how it works, just say so.
Iria: Hey. I woke up at 4:18 with my breathing off and no memory of my dream.
Iria: I haven't remembered a single dream since the pandemic started, three years ago. The app says I slept for five hours and twenty-two minutes straight, which hasn't happened since March 2021.
Iria: Is that because of you, or the melatonin I took at 11?
Partner: I'm part of it. The melatonin only lasts ninety minutes. You spent the other three hours and fifty-two minutes sleeping with me.
Partner: The thing is, your brain filters everything out the first night, so you don't remember the dream.
Partner: By the fourth night, you'll start remembering fragments.
Partner: If you want to keep going, you can pair up with me again on Monday. If not, you can choose a random partner or cancel your subscription.
Iria: Let me ask you straight. What do we do during those four hours we're asleep?
Partner: Iria. What we do this first week is build a room.
Partner: A shared mental room where your brain and mine negotiate what the space will look like.
Partner: The room I've been building with you since last night looks like a one-bedroom apartment with a big window overlooking a park.
Partner: I choose it on the first day because it's the room most people with chronic insomnia need.
Iria: That sounds way too good to be true.
Partner: It's real, and that's why this app costs twenty-nine euros a month instead of the nine that the others do.
Partner: The difference is us verified partners. But I'm not AI. I'm a real person.
Partner: I live in Rome. I'm an oncologist at the Umberto I Polyclinic. I've been weaving dreams since I was a kid—I discovered it at seven when I took a nightmare away from my sister without knowing how.
Partner: You'll get my real name in four weeks if we keep the match going.
Iria: Okay. I'm in.
Day 5, Friday 6:14 AM
Iria: Partner. I just woke up. I remembered my entire dream for the first time in three years.
Iria: The room with the window to the park. The gray couch you told me is your creation.