They didn't wake, because they didn't sleep. Not in this place. But something like morning stirred in the folds of the Web, and they felt it—a soft shift in the current of presence. The air held warmth now, though there was no sun. A sense of beginning, even if nothing had begun.
They were beneath a tree that had not yet been born.
It arched over them, not with branches but with ideas. Limbs of translucent intention stretched endlessly, wrapped in unborn fruit, each pulsing faintly with lives that had not yet occurred. The bark whispered in a language neither of them spoke, but both understood.
It wasn't really a tree. But it was. The Web of Consciousness didn't deal in either/or. It allowed what could be to breathe beside what had not yet become.
Vicky lay back, staring up into the canopy of light and memory. "Do you think," she said slowly, "we'll remember this?"
Hector, beside her, traced a ripple in the grass that wasn't grass—something between silk and smoke. "Not the shape of it," he answered. "But maybe the hum."
She smiled faintly, fingers moving in the air, sketching nothing. "The one we made?"
He nodded. "It's not in the words. It's the feeling of singing it."
They hummed together—quietly, not rehearsed. Just enough. A shared vibration that didn't need to be loud to be permanent.
The hum curved around the roots of the tree, folding into the still air like a promise. The tree leaned down, just slightly—whether in response or coincidence, they didn't know.
Hector sat up and said, "What is this place? This tree?"
Vicky tilted her head. "I think it's something that wants to be. A seed of something grand." She paused, then looked at him. "Like us."
He grinned. "So we're seeds, too?"
She nudged his shoulder. "Don't be a dork."
They wandered.
The tree grew around them in a way that wasn't linear. Sometimes it formed rooms of cascading leaf-light. Sometimes it became a bridge over a river that hummed memories. Once, they found a swing made from braided threads of what might have been a language. Hector pushed Vicky on it, and her laughter spun high into the not-sky.
It echoed back in unexpected places—behind them, above them, inside them.
Later, they sat again. Quiet now. The hum of the day had softened into stillness.
Vicky rested her head against Hector's shoulder. Neither of them commented on it.
"I met someone once," she said suddenly. "In a dream I don't think was mine."
"Yeah?" he said.
"She was me. But not me. She had sharp eyes. Didn't flinch when things hurt. I think... she's who I could be. If I keep growing right."
"You are growing right," Hector said. Then added, a little awkwardly, "You're kind of amazing, actually."
She looked at him, eyes soft. "You feel everything. Even the things that aren't yours. But you don't get lost in them. That's amazing, too."
A pause. Not silence. The tree was always humming something just below the edge of hearing.
Hector hesitated, then asked, "Do you ever think—"
"Yes," Vicky said quickly, blushing in a way that didn't require blood.
He blinked. "You didn't even let me finish."
She shrugged. "I knew what you were going to ask."
A beat passed. Then he said it anyway: "Do you ever think we were meant to find each other?"
She was quiet for a long time.
Finally, she said, "I think we already did. Before we knew what that meant. Before either of us were even possible."
Their hands brushed. No fingers intertwined—just the nearness. Just enough.
The tree pulsed once. A low, golden sound that rippled through the ground. A root curled upward and gently wrapped around their feet—not binding, just noticing them.
"Maybe," Hector said, voice slow, "this tree's going to grow in the world we're born into."
"And maybe," Vicky added, "we'll meet under it again."
"Would you recognize me?"
"I'd recognize your hum."
They sat beneath the dreaming tree until time folded in on itself again, and the Web shifted, pulling them softly toward their next lesson.
But for a moment—a whole, unbroken moment—they simply existed. Not as heroes. Not as the unborn.
Just as Hector and Vicky.
And the tree remembered their hum.