City of Dreams Vol 1

Book excerpt: In a secret world beneath the Earth’s crust, an impossible truth holds everything together: the very fabric of this underground reality is sustained by the collective dreams of the people who live there. Every tree, building, and cloud in the sky exists because they’re dreamt into existence. It’s a world built on the delicate balance of imagination and belief—where the citizens are literally the creators of their own reality. And amidst all this, we meet our protagonist, a delusional automotive engineer who believes he’s a scientific genius, hiding from the world in his underground lab to avoid government scrutiny. He feels as if he has stumbled upon this dream-powered world by accident. While everyone else down here nurtures and maintains the dream that makes their reality exist, he’s convinced it’s all nonsense—just a bizarre, unexplained anomaly. In his eyes, there’s a perfectly rational explanation for everything, one that will make him world-famous once he proves it. But the citizens of this world don’t see things his way; they rely on their collective belief, and anyone who challenges it is a threat. Lately, whispers have spread throughout the underground world, whispers of an unseen enemy. Posters have begun to appear on street corners, warning about someone who doesn’t believe—someone who threatens the dream. And it’s not dismissed as a conspiracy or fearmongering, but the warnings are growing louder, and the fear is starting to take root, because the residents believe. After all, what happens to a world made of dreams when someone refuses to dream along? Our protagonist, of course, finds these rumors laughable. The idea that belief powers the world is just superstition to him. He continues his work in secret, tampering with genetic technology and playing around with bizarre experiments that could potentially disrupt the delicate balance of the dreamworld. As tensions rise, the citizens begin to suspect that he may be the very enemy the posters warn of. The protagonist, stubborn and arrogant, refuses to accept that his disbelief could be causing any sort of breakdown. To him, the idea that belief controls reality is as absurd as the conspiracy theories he scoffs at. But the more the world unravels, the clearer it becomes: belief isn’t just a fanciful notion down here—it’s the very force keeping the world alive. The unseen enemy, the one who doesn't believe in the dream, may not be a shadowy figure in the background. It may be him.