ACCEPTANCE

Isabel never called back...

Or maybe she did, but Mars never picked up. He wasn't sure anymore.

It always started the same way.....magic in a moment, a shared joke, a look, that little flicker of maybe, but then it always unraveled. Slowly, then all at once.

Mars had been in more relationships than he cared to count. Not out of arrogance, but out of searching. Each time he thought maybe.... just maybe this was the one who would silence the ache in his chest, the one who would feel like the dream felt. The one who might look at him and see.....

But they never did!

They saw his potential, his politeness, his strangeness. But they never saw him and now, at twenty-four, Mars was exhausted. Exhausted by beginnings that led nowhere, late-night texts that faded into silence. By feeling like he was always just one step away from being enough.

He'd started to spiral again. Quietly, like rust eating through the hinges of a locked door. He woke up later and later, avoided mirrors, avoided his sketchbook too.

What was the point?

He was still unemployed, still living in a house that wasn't his. Still drifting through a fog of dreams and ideas that the real world had no use for.

The voice in his head had grown louder again, the one that said you're wasting time. The one that said your father is right. The one that said you're not lovable until you become something more.

And somewhere along the way, a wall had risen inside him.

He could feel it now tall and gray, no doors, no vines. Just cold stone, It stood between him and love. Not because he didn't want love… but because he no longer believed he could receive it. Because every time he got close to someone, all they ever saw were the cracks.

No one ever stayed long enough to see the gold beneath him. That night, Mars went to bed hollowed out. He didn't cry, he didn't speak, he just lay there, headphones on but silent...watching the ceiling like it might peel open and explain something. The weight of his father's disappointment, of missed calls, of unfinished sketches....it pressed on his chest like gravity turned up too high.

Sleep came slow, but when it did, it pulled him somewhere else. He found himself walking barefoot through a field of golden wheat. The sky above was wide and blue, so clean it almost ached to look at. The sun wasn't warm or cold it simply was, like the heartbeat of the world. The wheat whispered as he moved, Mars didn't know where he was going, but his feet kept walking.

He came to a wooden fence, old but standing. On the other side was a forest deep green and wild, its trees thick with shadow. He climbed the fence and stepped into the woods.

Instantly, the wind changed, the birds went silent, the trees closed in. Then came the animals....not monsters, not beasts.... just eyes, dozens of them, wolves, owls, foxes, deer. Watching, judging and then chasing.

He ran, back through the brush, back over the fence, back to the golden field. He collapsed, breath ragged. That's when he saw the shack, small, crooked, and leaning under its own weight. From inside came a voice, not a audible voice, a temptation.

A black dragon sat inside, its eyes glowing coals. It didn't roar or bare teeth....It offered. Laughter, warmth, youth, pleasures Mars had never known. He stepped back....

"I've seen what you give," he said quietly. "And what it costs."

The dragon smiled, then vanished into ash, Mars turned. Next came the mosque. It shimmered like something from a sacred dream domes gilded in gold, marble walls carved with ancient calligraphy. It looked perfect...too perfect!

But inside there was nothing! No prayers! No people! No sound! Just cold beauty.

He bowed his head, whispered something for the lost, and walked on. Then came the church. It was barely standing, wood splintered, walls cracked, roof gone. Rain poured through it, but it was full of people. Working, singing, crying, building.

But no matter how they tried, the church never changed. Mars stood for a long time, then turned again. He walked until the land rose beneath his feet. A mountain, tall, silent, watching. He climbed...

The blizzard hit halfway up, sharp snow, biting wind, the kind of cold that peels skin from bone. Still, he kept climbing. Hands bloodied, breath thin and still he didn't stop. Not until he crested the final ridge and saw it...

A valley hidden at the summit.

Bathed in sunlight, wildflowers of every kind blooming in impossible colors. Birds in the sky. A warmth so pure it felt like music. Then a voice, not loud, not angry, just true.

"This is my promised land, made for my people."

Mars fell to his knees, he wanted to ask who the voice belonged to. Why it was showing him this and what it meant. But before he could speak, his eyes opened. He was in bed, breathing fast, heart hammering, sweat clinging to his skin and a feeling in his chest he couldn't name....

Not fear, not peace, something else, like the dream hadn't ended, like it had begun. Mars stopped feeling rested.....Not because he wasn't sleeping, he was, more than ever. But because he was always dreaming, it only got dreadful...

Night after night, the same path, the same blizzard, the same voice calling to him from the summit like thunder wrapped in silk. Each time he woke, it was with that strange blend of awe and dread like something vast was watching him, waiting. At first, he tried to forget. Told himself it was just a dream, some subconscious metaphor. A trick of the soul.

But it kept coming!

Every time he opened his eyes, the world felt thinner. His bedroom dimmer, his limbs heavier. Like the dream was pulling pieces of him away, one by one, leaving only shadow behind. His sketchbooks stayed closed, his eyes stayed tired, his heart stayed split and the mornings grew shorter or maybe he just woke up later. By the third week, he was waking up at noon, then 1pm, then 2.

His father wasn't quiet about it.

"Mars!" the voice boomed through the door. "It's two o'clock! Do you think life waits for people to wake up?!"

Mars rolled over in bed, the dream still whispering through his mind like mist.

"I wasn't asleep," he murmured although clearly a lie..

"What are you even doing with your life?" his father yelled "Drawing? Dreaming? Do you know what a waste of potential looks like? Look in the mirror!"

He didn't answer, he couldn't. The truth was, Mars didn't know what he believed anymore. His mother had raised him with love and prayer mats, soft teachings and quiet faith. His father had filled the house with sermons, fire and rules and promises of divine purpose. But the dream… the dream was neither....or maybe both...or maybe something else entirely.

He felt it pressing against the walls of his mind now not just like a memory, but a question, a calling and Mars wasn't ready for it. So he lay in bed, eyes open, chest still. Not lazy, not lost, Just… not awake.

Mars didn't remember falling asleep, he was lying on his bed, arms crossed over his chest, eyes fixed on the cracks in the ceiling like they might form a map if he stared long enough. The gray afternoon light pooled gently through the curtains, and somewhere in the house, a kettle sang in the distance.

And then, he was dreaming. But it didn't feel like a dream, he was still in his room. The same position, the same light. Only… something was different. There was a sound...a lullaby so soft, it didn't seem sung so much as remembered. A melody his soul somehow knew, though he'd never heard it before.

And then, a touch....

Gentle and slow, a palm running across his face like a breeze made flesh. It moved with the rhythm of the song, brushing his brow, his cheek, as if he were a child being lulled to sleep by love itself. Mars tried to open his eyes wider...to see. But when he looked toward the figure at his side, a blinding light flooded his vision, not harsh, not painful, but absolute.

In the center of it, all he could make out was a halo of long, golden hair drifting softly as though underwater. He didn't speak, he didn't need to. For the first time in weeks maybe months, the tightness in his chest eased. His thoughts grew quiet...the light pulsed gently once, then faded like a breath being held and released.

And Mars woke up...

But not with a start, not with sweat or dread or racing thoughts. Just… slowly and peacefully. And then the door creaked open, his mother stood in the doorway, wrapped in her soft house robe, her eyes lined with a concern deeper than words.

"Mars," she said, almost a whisper, "what's eating away at you?"

Mars sat up slowly, rubbing his eyes. The memory of the touch still lingered on his skin like warmth from the sun. He wanted to tell her everything, the dreams, the voices, the mountain, the woman of light...but something in him paused. Not from shame, not from secrecy. Just a need to protect it...like a flame in wind.

"I've been… dreaming," he said at last.

She walked in, sat on the edge of the bed, and rested a hand on his back.

"About what?" He looked down at his fingers, turning them over slowly.

"About something I don't understand yet. But I think… it's showing me something important and I don't know if it's from God or from me, but it won't let me go."

His mother nodded slowly, her eyes studying him the way only a mother could...seeing the boy in the man, the struggle beneath the silence.

"You don't have to know what it means yet," she said softly. "Sometimes, the soul sees further than the mind. Just don't stop listening."

And for the first time in days, Mars nodded back. Not because he understood, but because for now that was enough. His peace had returned to him.