I jolt awake with the rotten stench of a graveyard still lodged in my throat, and the burning sensation of fingernails scraping at the last light of day still lingers on my fingertips. In reality, the ancestor-worship ceremony goes smoothly; in the nightmare, it becomes a dead end, with ghosts closing in and a temple collapsing. When I notice black markings on the locust-tree branch I clutched in my dream, I finally realize: that escape, with shadows gnawing at my heels, has already crossed over from my dream and wrapped itself around my ankles in the real world.
