O
Orion made maps of places that didn't exist. He sat by the bedside of sleeping people, a sketchbook on his knee.
"Where are you going?" he whispered to the sleeper.
As they dreamed, Orion drew. He mapped the Mountains of Madness. He charted the River of Forgotton Homework. He sketched the City where Everyone Is Naked.
One night, he visited the dream of a comatose girl named Alice. Her map was blank. Just a white void.
"She is lost," Orion realized. "She has wandered off the edge of the map."
Orion closed his eyes. He fell asleep. He entered the dreamscape.
He walked through the white void. He took out his pen. He drew a road under his feet. He drew a door. He drew a signpost: "This Way to Waking."
He found Alice huddled in the nothingness. "Follow the ink," he told her.
She took his hand. They walked along the drawn road. As they walked, the void filled with color. Trees of green ink sprouted. A sun of yellow watercolor rose.
Orion woke up in his chair. Alice woke up in her bed.
"I had a strange dream," she told the nurse. "A man drew me a way home."
Orion smiled, rolling up his map. "X marks the spot," he whispered.