The Library of Forgotten Dreams

The Forgotten Dream of Flying

Klára woke up with a strange feeling of emptiness. It was as if someone had taken something precious right out of her head. She couldn’t concentrate all morning at school. During the long break, she wandered into an old hallway lined with dusty lockers full of forgotten items.

In one box, she found something strange—a bronze doorknob that glowed with a faint light. When she touched it, she felt a slight tremor in her fingers. She took it home.

That evening, after her parents had fallen asleep, Klára pulled the doorknob out of her backpack. She twirled it between her fingers for a moment before trying to fit it onto the door of the closet in her room. The doorknob clicked into place as if it had always belonged there. Her heart was pounding as she turned it.

The door opened, but instead of a coat and shoes, endless corridors stretched out before her. The walls were lined with shelves of books that looked like bubbles—transparent, shimmering, full of color. Some were golden like a sunset, others blue like the night sky.

Klára hesitated only for a moment. Curiosity overcame her fear, and she took her first step into the library.

Traces in the Dust of Time

“Welcome, Klára,” a soft voice said. Luna stepped out of the shadows—a tall woman in a shimmering cloak that looked as if it had been woven from twilight. “I was expecting you. Only those who have forgotten an important dream can find their way here.”

Luna led Klára deep into the library. “Each of these books is someone’s forgotten dream,” she explained. “They don’t disappear forever; they just become part of this library. Look.”

She touched one of the golden bubbles, and it opened. Klára saw herself—younger—flying over the city with her arms outstretched. She remembered! This was the dream she had lost.

“Sometimes people take their dreams back themselves,” Luna said wearily. Klára noticed the darker shadows under her eyes. “But lately…”

There were empty spaces on one shelf. The dust on them was disturbed, as if someone had quickly pulled out several books at once. And there was a trail leading from them—strange dark smudges that Klára had never seen before.

“Someone is stealing them,” Klára whispered.

Luna nodded sadly. “The Collector. And I’m too weak to stop him on my own.”

The Collector is Coming

Klára decided to follow the trail. Luna warned her, but she was already determined. Dark smudges led to the older section of the library, where the shelves were covered in cobwebs.

In a semicircle of empty shelves stood a figure in a gray cloak. She was collecting dreams into a large sack, and each one lost its color upon contact.

“Stop!” Klára shouted.

The collector turned around. No face was visible under the hood, only emptiness. “You don’t understand,” whispered a voice full of pain. “I don’t have any dreams left. I’ve forgotten everything. I need them…”

“But they belong to other people!”

At that moment, there was a thud behind Klára. Filip, her classmate who had been secretly following her from school, bumped into a bookshelf. The bubble-books scattered. The Collector quickly grabbed some of them.

“No!” Klára lunged forward, but the Collector was already disappearing into the dark hallway. Filip jumped to his feet, his face flushed.

“Sorry! I just… I saw you with that handle and…”

Klára sighed. “You helped him escape. Now we have to work together to fix this.”

A Map Made of Dream Fragments

Luna gave them a special lantern. “It shows the trail of dreams,” she explained. “But you must be careful. The Collector is desperate right now.”

Filip proved to be helpful. His imagination and logical thinking helped them figure out the library’s layout. “It’s like a puzzle,” he said excitedly. “Every dream has its place according to age and type.”

Suddenly, a small luminous creature appeared before them—Lantern. It looked like a flying drop of sunlight with big eyes.

“I know the way! I know the way!” it chirped. “The Collector has hidden the stolen dreams in the Realm of Nightmares. But it’s dangerous there!”

Filip began gathering fragments of fallen dreams from the floor. “Look, Klára! If we put them together correctly, they show the way.”

They worked together—Klára held the lantern, Filip pieced together a map from the dream fragments, and Little Lantern pointed out secret passages. Gradually, a glowing map emerged, leading to the oldest part of the library.

“No one dares go there,” whispered Little Lantern. “There are dreams there that people wanted to forget forever.”

Klára swallowed her fear. “But we have to go there. For the others.”

In the Realm of Nightmares

The Realm of Nightmares was terrifying. The dreams here were dark and twisted. Klára’s dream of flying hung on a spiderweb—but instead of the joy of flight, it showed an endless fall into darkness.

“That’s… that’s my dream,” Klára breathed. “But everything in it is wrong.”

Filip took her hand. “The Collector changes them. When you feel bad, even beautiful things look ugly to you.”

They had to walk past dreams full of shadows and whispers. The little lantern lit their way, even though it trembled with fear. In the deepest part, they found the Collector surrounded by stolen dreams. He was trying to absorb them, but instead of joy, they only brought him greater pain.

“Why isn’t this working?!” he shouted desperately.

Klára stepped closer, even though her knees were shaking. “Because they aren’t your dreams. You can’t live on other people’s memories.”

“But I have nothing!”

The sight of the Collector—empty, lost—filled Klára with compassion instead of anger. It reminded her of the feeling when she forgot her own dream in the morning. Only a thousand times worse.

“What about your first dream?” she asked quietly. “The very first one. Maybe it’s not completely lost.”

The Last Dream Before Dawn

“I don’t remember,” whispered the Collector, dejectedly.

“Luna said that no dream is ever completely lost,” said Filip. “Just forgotten. And this is the library of forgotten dreams!”

Klára understood. Together with Lantern and Filip, they searched the oldest part of the library. The lantern led them to a single bubble-book, which was almost transparent, barely visible.

When Klára touched it, she saw a little boy—the young Collector—dreaming of friendship, of belonging somewhere. Of home.

They brought the bubble to the Collector. When he touched it, he cried out all his pain. The bubble began to shimmer more brightly. And with it, all the stolen dreams—they were returning to their original beauty.

Luna arrived just in time. “I’m offering you a place,” she said kindly to the Collector. “Help me guard the dreams. Maybe that way you’ll find what you’re looking for.”

The Collector nodded. For the first time, he had a purpose.

Klára and Filip returned home as the first rays of sunlight fell on the library. The doorknob had vanished from the closet door.

But as Klára drifted off to sleep that night, she saw the dream of flying again. And this time she knew—some things are worth remembering.

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